Other Events and Attributes:

• FSID: MT39-VLW
• Life Event: 951, Wilton (near Salisbury), Wiltshire, England; Nun

Notes:

Eadgifu of Wessex
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Eadgifu of Wessex

Born 902
Died After 955
Spouse Charles III of France
Herbert III of Omois
Issue Louis IV
House Wessex
Father Edward the Elder
Mother Ælfflæd
Eadgifu or Edgifu (902 – after 955) also known as Edgiva or Ogive (Old English: Ēadgifu) was a daughter[1] of Edward the Elder, King of Wessex and England, and his second wife Ælfflæd. She was born in Wessex.

Contents
1 Marriage to the French King
2 Flight to England
3 Notes
4 References
5 External links
Marriage to the French King
Eadgifu was one of three West Saxon sisters married to Continental rulers: the others were Eadgyth, who married Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor and Eadhild, who married Hugh the Great. Eadgifu became the second wife of Charles, King of the West Franks,[1] whom she married in 919 after the death of his first wife, Frederonne. Eadgifu was mother to Louis IV of France.

Flight to England
In 922 Charles III was deposed and, after being defeated at the Battle of Soissons in 923, he was taken prisoner by Count Herbert II of Vermandois, an ally of the then current king. To protect her son's safety Eadgifu took him to England in 923 to the court of her half-brother, King Æthelstan of England.[2] Because of this, Louis IV of France became known as Louis d'Outremer of France. He stayed there until 936, when he was called back to France to be crowned King. Eadgifu accompanied him.

She retired to a convent in Laon.[3] In 951, Heribert the Old, Count of Omois, abducted and married her, to the great anger of her son.[4]

Eadgifu married de France, Charles in 919. Charles (son of de France, Louis II and de Paris, Adélaïde) was born on 17 Sep 879 in France; died on 7 Oct 929 in Péronne, Somme, Picardie, France; was buried after 7 Oct 929 in Abbey of Saint Fursy, Péronne, Somme, Picardie, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. of the West Franks, King Louis IV was born on 10 Sep 921 in Laon, Aisne, Picardie, France; died on 10 Sep 954 in Reims, Marne, Champagne-Ardenne, France; was buried after 10 Sep 954 in Abbey of Saint-Remi, Reims, Marne, Champagne-Ardenne, France.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Appointments / Titles: King of the Anglo-Saxons
• House: House of Wessex
• Nickname: The Elder
• FSID: LCDM-N61
• Appointments / Titles: Between 26 Oct 899 and 17 Jul 924; King of Anglo-Saxons

Notes:

Edward the Elder

King of the Anglo-Saxons
Reign 26 October 899 – 17 July 924
Coronation 8 June 900 Kingston upon Thames or Winchester
Predecessor Alfred the Great
Successor Æthelstan
Born c. 874
Died 17 July 924 Farndon, Cheshire, England
Burial New Minster, Winchester, later translated to Hyde Abbey

Spouse
Ecgwynn
Ælfflæd
Eadgifu
Issue
Æthelstan, King of England
Daughter, wife of Sitric Cáech
Eadgifu
Ælfweard, King of Wessex?
Eadgyth
Eadhild
Ælfgifu of Wessex
Eadflæd of Wessex
Eadhild of Wessex
Edwin of Wessex
Edmund, King of England
Eadred, King of England
Saint Eadburh of Winchester
House Wessex
Father Alfred, King of Wessex
Mother Ealhswith
Religion Catholicism (pre-reformation)

Edward the Elder
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Edward the Elder (Old English: Eadweard cyning; c. 874 – 17 July 924) was King of the Anglo-
Saxons from 899 until his death. He became king in 899 upon the death of his father, Alfred the Great.
He captured the eastern Midlands and East Anglia from the Danes in 917 and became ruler of Mercia
in 918 upon the death of Æthelflæd, his sister.
All but two of his charters give his title as "Anglorum Saxonum rex" ("king of the Anglo-Saxons"), a
title first used by his father, Alfred.[1] According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle the Kings of Scotland
and Strathclyde and the rulers of Northumbria "chose [Edward] as father and lord" in 920, a claim
dismissed by most modern historians.[2] Edward's cognomen "the Elder" was first used in Wulfstan's
Life of St Æthelwold (c. 996) to distinguish him from the later King Edward the Martyr.
Contents
1 Background
2 Childhood
3 Ætheling
4 Æthelwold's revolt
5 King of the Anglo-Saxons
6 Conquest of the southern Danelaw
7 Coinage
8 Church
9 Learning
10 Law and administration
11 Later life
12 Reputation
13 Marriages and children
14 Genealogy
15 Notes
16 Citations
17 Bibliography
18 Further reading
19 External links
Background
Mercia was the dominant kingdom in southern England in the eighth century and maintained its
position until it suffered a decisive defeat by Wessex at the Battle of Ellandun in 825. Thereafter the
two kingdoms became allies, which was to be an important factor in English resistance to the
Vikings.[3] In 865 the Danish Viking Great Heathen Army landed in East Anglia and used this as a
starting point for an invasion. The East Anglians were forced to buy peace and the following year the
Vikings invaded Northumbria, where they appointed a puppet king in 867. They then moved on
Mercia, where they spent the winter of 867–868. King Burgred of Mercia was joined by King Æthelred
of Wessex and his brother, the future King Alfred, for a combined attack on the Vikings, who refused
an engagement; in the end the Mercians bought peace with them. The following year, the Danes
conquered East Anglia, and in 874 they expelled King Burgred and Ceolwulf became the last King of
Mercia with their support. In 877 the Vikings partitioned Mercia, taking the eastern regions for
themselves and allowing Ceolwulf to keep the western ones. The situation was transformed the
following year when Alfred won a decisive victory over the Danes at the Battle of Edington. He was
thus able to prevent the Vikings from taking Wessex and western Mercia, although they still occupied
Northumbria, East Anglia and eastern Mercia.[4]
Childhood
Alfred the Great married his Mercian queen Ealhswith in 868. Her father was Æthelred Mucel,
Ealdorman of the Gaini, and her mother, Eadburh, was a member of the Mercian royal family. Alfred and Ealhswith had five children who survived
childhood. Their first child was Æthelflæd, who married Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians and ruled as Lady of the Mercians after his death. Edward was
next, and the second daughter, Æthelgifu, became abbess of Shaftesbury. The third daughter, Ælfthryth, married Baldwin, Count of Flanders, and the
youngest child, Æthelweard, was given a scholarly education, including learning Latin. This would usually suggest that he was intended for the church,
but it is unlikely in Æthelweard's case as he had sons. There were also an unknown number of children who died young. Neither part of Edward's name,
which means 'protector of wealth', had been used previously by the West Saxon royal house, and Barbara Yorke suggests that he may have been named
after his maternal grandmother Eadburh, reflecting the West Saxon policy of strengthening links with Mercia.[5]
Æthelflæd was probably born about a year after her parents' marriage, and Edward was brought up with his youngest sister, Ælfthryth. Yorke argues that
he was therefore probably nearer in age to Ælfthryth than Æthelflæd. However, he led troops in battle in 893, and he must have been of marriagable age
in that year as his oldest son Æthelstan was born about 894, so Edward was probably born in the mid-870s.[6] According to Asser in his Life of King
Alfred, Edward and Ælfthryth were educated at court by male and female tutors, and read ecclesiastical and secular works in English, such as the Psalms
See list
A page from the will of Alfred the
Great, which left the bulk of his estate
to Edward
Coin of Edward the Elder
and Old English poems. They were taught the courtly qualities of gentleness and humility, and Asser wrote that
they were obedient to their father and friendly to visitors. This is the only known case of an Anglo-Saxon prince
and princess receiving the same upbringing.[7]
Ætheling
As a son of a king, Edward was an ætheling, a prince of the royal house who was eligible for kingship. However,
even though he had the advantage of being the eldest son of the reigning king, his accession was not assured, as
he had cousins who had a strong claim to the throne. Æthelhelm and Æthelwold were sons of Æthelred, Alfred's
older brother and predecessor as king. More is known about Edward's childhood than about that of other Anglo-
Saxon princes, providing information about the training of a prince in a period of Carolingian influence, and
Yorke suggest that this may have been due to Alfred's efforts to portray his son as the most throneworthy
ætheling.[8]
Æthelhelm is only recorded in Alfred's will of the mid-880s, and probably died at some time in the next decade,
but Æthelwold is listed above Edward in the only charter where he appears, probably indicating a higher status.
Æthelwold may also have had an advantage because his mother Wulfthryth witnessed a charter as queen, whereas
Edward's mother Ealhswith never had a higher status than king's wife. However, Alfred was in a position to give
his own son considerable advantages. In his will, only left a handful of estates to his brother's sons, and the bulk
of his property to Edward, including all his booklands in Kent. In a Kentish charter of 898 Edward witnessed as
rex Saxonum, suggesting that Alfred may have followed the strategy adopted by his grandfather Egbert of
strengthening his son's claim to succeed to the West Saxon throne by declaring him King of Kent.[9] Alfred also
advanced men who could be depended on to support his plans for his succession, such as his brother-in-law, a
Mercian ealdorman called Æthelwulf, his son-in-law Æthelred, and a relative called Osferth, who may have been
Alfred's illegitimate son. Once Edward grew up Alfred was able to give him military commands and experience
of royal business. Edward frequently witnessed Alfred's charters, suggesting that he often accompanied his father
on royal peregrinations.[10]
In 893 Edward defeated the Vikings in the Battle of Farnham, although he was unable to follow up his victory as his troops period of service and expired
and he had to release them. The situation was saved by the arrival of troops from London led by his brother-in-law, Æthelred. The English defeated
renewed Viking attacks in 893 to 896, and in Richard Abels' view, the glory belonged to Æthelred and Edward.[11] Yorke argues that although Alfred
packed the witan with members whose interests lay in the continuation of Alfred's line, that may not have been sufficient to ensure Edward's accession, if
he had not displayed his fitness for kingship.[12] However, Janet Nelson suggests that there was conflict between Alfred and Edward in the 890s. She
points out that the contemporary Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, produced under court auspices in the 890s, does not mention Edward's military successes.
These are only known from the late tenth century chronicle of Æthelweard, such as his account of the Battle of Farnham, in which in Nelson's view
"Edward's military prowess, and popularity with a following of young warriors, are highlighted". Towards the end of his life Alfred invested his young
grandson Æthelstan in a ceremony which historians see as designation as eventual successor to the kingship. Nelson argues that while this may have been
proposed by Edward to support the accession of his own son, on the other hand it may have been intended by Alfred as part of a scheme to divide the
kingdom between his son and grandson. Æthelstan was sent to be brought up in Mercia Æthelflæd and Æthelred, but it is not known whether this was
Alfred's idea or Edward's. Alfred's wife Ealhswith is ignored in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in her husband's lifetime, but emerges from obscurity when
her son accedes. This may be because she supported her son against her husband.[13]
In about 893 Edward had married Ecgwynn, who bore him two children, the future King Æthelstan and a daughter who married Sitric, a Viking King of
York. An opponent of Æthelstan claimed that his mother was a concubine of low birth, but the earliest life of the nobly born Saint Dunstan suggests that
he was a relative of hers, and William of Malmesbury described her as an illustris femina. She may have died by 899, as around the time of Alfred's death
Edward took Ælfflæd as his second wife. She was the daughter of Ealdorman Æthelhelm, probably of Wiltshire.[14]
Æthelwold's revolt
Alfred died on 26 October 899 and Edward succeeded to the throne, but Æthelwold immediately disputed the
succession.[15] He seized the royal estates of Wimborne, symbolically important as the place where his father
was buried, and Christchurch. Edward marched with his army to the nearby Iron Age hillfort at Badbury
Rings. Æthelwold declared that he would live or die at Wimborne, but then left in the night and rode to
Northumbria, where the Danes accepted him as king.[16] Edward was crowned on 8 June 900 at Kingston upon
Thames or Winchester.[a]
In 901, Æthelwold came with a fleet to Essex, and the following year he persuaded the East Anglian Danes to
invade and harry English Mercia and northern Wessex. Edward retaliated by ravaging East Anglia, but when
he retreated the men of Kent disobeyed the order to retire, and were intercepted by the Danish army. The two sides met at the Battle of the Holme
(perhaps Holme in Huntingdonshire) on 13 December 902. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the Danes "kept the place of slaughter", meaning
that they won the battle, but they suffered heavy losses, including Æthelwold and a King Eohric, possibly of the East Anglian Danes. Kentish losses
included Sigehelm, ealdorman of Kent and father of Edward's third wife, Eadgifu. Æthelwold's death ended the threat to Edward's throne.[18]
King of the Anglo-Saxons
In London in 886 Alfred had received the formal submission of "all the English people that were not under subjection to the Danes", and thereafter he
adopted the title "King of the Anglo-Saxons". This is seen by Simon Keynes as "the invention of a wholly new and distinctive polity", covering both
West Saxons and Mercians, which was inherited by Edward with the support of Mercians at the West Saxon court, of whom the most important was
Plegmund, Archbishop of Canterbury. In 903 Edward issued three charters at a meeting attended by the Mercian leaders and their daughter Ælfwynn.
The charters all contain a statement that Æthelred and Æthelflæd "then held rulership and power over the race of the Mercians, under the aforesaid
king".[19] This view of Edward's status is accepted by Martin Ryan, who states that Æthelred and Æthelflæd had "a considerable but ultimately
subordinate share of royal authority" in English Mercia.[20] Other historians disagree. Pauline Stafford describes Æthelflæd as "the last Mercian
queen",[21] while in Charles Insley's view Mercia kept its independence until Æthelflæd's death in 918.[22] Michael Davidson contrasts the 903 charters
with one of 901 in which the Mercian rulers were "by grace of God, holding, governing and defending the monarchy of the Mercians". Davidson
comments that "the evidence for Mercian subordination is decidedly mixed. Ultimately, the ideology of the 'Kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons' may have
been less successful in achieving the absorption of Mercia and more something which I would see as a murky political coup."[23] The Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle was compiled at the West Saxon court from the 890s, and the entries for the late ninth and early tenth centuries are seen by historians as
reflecting the West Saxon viewpoint; Davidson observes that "Alfred and Edward possessed skilled 'spin doctors'".[24] However, some versions of the
Chronicle incorporate part of a lost Mercian Register, which gives a Mercian perspective and details of Æthelfæd's campaign against the Vikings.[20]
The standard of Anglo-Saxon learning declined severely in the ninth century, particularly in Wessex, and Mercian scholars such as Plegmund played a
prominent part in the revival of learning initiated by Alfred. Mercians were prominent at the courts of Alfred and Edward, and the Mercian dialect and
scholarship commanded West Saxon respect.[25] The only large scale embroideries which were certainly made in Anglo-Saxon England date to Edward's
reign. They are a stole, a maniple and a possible girdle found in the tomb of St Cuthbert. They were donated by Æthelstan in 934, but inscriptions on the
embroideries show that they were commissioned by Edward's second wife, Ælflæd, as a gift to Frithestan, Bishop of Winchester. They probably did not
reach their intended destination because Æthelstan was on bad terms with Winchester.[26]
In the late ninth and early tenth centuries connection with the West Saxon royal house was seen as prestigious by continental rulers. In the mid-890s
Alfred had married his daughter Ælfthryth to Baldwin II of Flanders, and in 919 Edward married his daughter Eadgifu to Charles the Simple, King of
West Francia. In 925, after Edward's death, another daughter Eadgyth married Otto, the future King of Germany and (after Eadgyth's death) Holy Roman
Emperor.[27]
Conquest of the southern Danelaw
No battles are recorded between the Anglo-Saxons and the Danish Vikings for several years after the Battle of the Holme, but in 906 Edward agreed
peace with the East Anglian and Northumbrian Danes, suggesting that there had been conflict. According to one version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle he
made peace "of necessity", suggesting he was forced to buy them off.[15] He encouraged Englishmen to purchase land in Danish territory, and two
charters survive relating to estates in Bedfordshire and Derbyshire.[28] In 909, Edward sent an army to harass Northumbria. In the following year, the
Northumbrian Vikings retaliated by raiding Mercia, but on their way home they were met by a combined Mercian and West Saxon army at the Battle of
Tettenhall, where the Northumbrians suffered a disastrous defeat. From that point, they never ventured south of the River Humber, and Edward and his
Mercian allies were able to concentrate on conquering the southern Danelaw in East Anglia and the Five Boroughs of Viking east Mercia: Derby,
Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham and Stamford.[15] In 911 Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians, died, and Edward took control of the Mercian lands around
London and Oxford. Æthelred was succeeded as ruler by his widow Æthelflæd as Lady of the Mercians, and she had probably been acting as ruler for
several years as Æthelred seems to have been incapacitated in later life.[29]
Edward and Æthelflæd then began the construction of fortresses to guard against Viking attacks and protect territory captured from them. In November
911 he constructed a fort on the north bank of the River Lea at Hertford to guard against attack by the Danes of Bedford and Cambridge. In 912 he
marched with his army to Maldon in Essex, and ordered the building of an earth fortification, and this together with another fort south of the Lea at
Hertford protected London from attack, and encouraged many English living under Danish rule in Essex to submit to him instead. In 913 there was a
pause in his activities, although Æthelflæd continued her fortress building in Mercia. In 914 a Viking army sailed from Brittany and ravaged the Severn
estuary. It was defeated by a Mercian army, and Edward kept an army on the south side of the estuary which twice repelled attempts to invade Wessex. In
the autumn the Vikings moved on to Ireland. In November 914 Edward built two forts at Buckingham, and many Danes at Bedford and Northampton
submitted to him, while others left England with Earl Thurketil, reducing the number of Viking armies in the midlands. In 916 Edward built a fortress at
Maldon as another defence against the Danes of Colchester.[30]
The decisive year in the war was 917. In April Edward built a fort at Towcester as a defence against the Danes of Northampton, and another at an
unidentified place called Wigingamere. The Danes launched unsuccessful attacks on Towcester, Bedford and Wigingamere, while Æthelflæd captured
Derby, showing the value of the English defensive measures, which was aided by disunity and a lack of coordination among the Viking armies. The
Danes had built their own fortress at Tempsford, but at the end of the summer the English stormed it and killed the last Danish king of East Anglia. The
English then took Colchester, although they did not try to hold it. The Danes retaliated by sending a large army to lay siege to Maldon, but the garrison
held out until it was relieved and the retreating army was heavily defeated. Edward then returned to Towcester and reinforced its fort with a stone wall,
and the Danes of nearby Northampton submitted to him. The armies of Cambridge and East Anglia also submitted, and by the end of the year the only
Danish armies still holding out were those of four of the Five Boroughs, Leicester, Stamford, Nottingham, and Lincoln.[31]
In early 918, Æthelflæd secured the submission of Leicester without a fight, and the Danes of Northumbrian York offered her their allegiance, probably
for protection against Norse (Norwegian) Vikings who had invaded Northumbria from Ireland, but she died on 12 June before she could take up the
proposal. The same offer is not known to have been made to Edward, and the Norse Vikings took York in 919. Æthelflæd was succeeded by her daughter
Ælfwynn, but the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states that in December 918 she "was deprived of all authority in Mercia and taken into Wessex". Mercia then
came under Edward's direct rule. Stamford had surrendered to Edward before Æthelflæd's death, and Nottingham did the same shortly afterwards.
According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 918, "all the people who had settled in Mercia, both Danish and English, submitted to him". This would
mean that he ruled all England south of the Humber, but it is not clear whether Lincoln was an exception, as coins of Viking York in the early 920s were
probably minted at Lincoln.[32] Some Danish jarls were allowed to keep their estates, although Edward probably also rewarded his supporters with land,
and some he kept in his own hands. Coin evidence suggests that his authority was stronger in the East Midlands than in East Anglia.[33]
Coinage
The principal currency was the silver penny, some of which had a stylised portrait of the king. Royal coins had "EADVVEARD REX" on the obverse
and the name of the moneyer of the reverse. The place of issue is not shown, but in Æthelstan's reign the location was shown, allowing the location of
many moneyers of Edward's reign to be established. There were mints in Bath, Canterbury, Chester, Chichester, Derby, Exeter, Hereford, London,
Oxford, Shaftesbury, Shrewsbury, Southampton, Stafford, Wallingford, Wareham, Winchester and probably other towns. No coins were struck in the
name of Æthelred or Æthelflæd, but from around 910 mints in English Mercia produced coins with an unusual decorative design on the reverse. This
ceased before 920, and probably represents Æthelflæd's way of distinguishing her coinage from that of her brother. There was also a minor issue of coins
in the name of Plegmund, Archbishop of Canterbury. There was a dramatic increase in the number of moneyers over Edward's reign, with less than 25 in
the south in the first ten years rising to 67 in the last ten years, around 5 in English Mercia rising to 23, plus 27 in the re-conquered Danelaw.[34]
Church
In 908, Plegmund conveyed the alms of the English king and people to the Pope, the first visit to Rome by an Archbishop of Canterbury for almost a
century, and the journey may have been to seek papal approval for a proposed re-organisation of the West Saxon sees.[35] When Edward came to the
throne Wessex had two dioceses, Winchester, held by Denewulf, and Sherborne, held by Asser.[36] In 908 Denewulf died and was replaced the following
year by Frithestan; soon afterwards Winchester was divided into two sees, with the creation of the diocese of Ramsbury covering Wiltshire and
Berkshire, while Winchester was left with Hampshire and Surrrey. Forged charters date the division to 909, but this may not be correct. Asser died in the
same year, and at some date between 909 and 918 Sherborne was divided into three sees, with Crediton covering Devon and Cornwall, and Wells
covering Somerset, while Sherborne was left with Dorset.[37] The effect of the changes were to strengthen the status of Canterbury compared with
Winchester and Sherborne, but the division may have been related to a change in the function of West Saxon bishops, to become agents of royal
government in shires rather than provinces, assisting in defence and taking part in shire courts.[38]
At the beginning of Edward's reign his mother, Ealhswith, founded the abbey of St Mary for nuns, known as the Nunnaminster, in Winchester.[39]
Edward's daughter Eadburh became a nun there, and she was venerated as a saint and the subject of a hagiography by Osbert of Clare in the twelfth
century.[40] In 901 Edward started building a major monastery for men, probably in accordance of his father's wishes. The monastery was next to
Winchester Cathedral, which became known as the Old Minster, while Edward's foundation was called the New Minster. It was much larger than the Old
Minster, and was probably intended as a royal mausoleum.[41] It acquired relics of the Breton Saint Judoc, which probably arrived in England from
Ponthieu in 901, and the body of one of Alfred's closest advisers, Grimbald, who died in the same year and who was soon venerated as a saint. Edward's
mother died in 902, and he buried her and Alfred there, moving his father's body from the Old Minster. Burials in the early 920s included Edward
himself, his brother Æthelweard, and his son Ælfweard. However, when Æthelstan became king in 924, he did not show any favour to his father's
foundation, probably because Winchester sided against him when the throne was disputed after Edward's death. The only later royal burial at the New
Minster was that of King Eadwig in 959.[42]
Edward's decision not to expand the Old Minster, but rather to overshadow it with a much larger building, suggests animosity towards Bishop Denewulf,
and this was compounded by forcing the Old Minster to cede both land for the new site, and an estate of 70 hides at Beddington to provide an income for
the New Minster. Edward was remembered by the New Minster as a benefactor, and at the Old Minster as rex avidus (greedy king).[43] Alan Thacker
comments:
Edward's method of endowing New Minster was of a piece with his ecclesiastical policy in general. Like his father he gave little to the church —
indeed, judging by the dearth of charters for much of his reign he seems to have given away little at all...More than any other, Edward's kingship
seems to epitomise the new hard-nosed monarchy of Wessex, determined to exploit all its resources, lay and ecclesiastical, for its own benefit.[44]
Patrick Wormald observes: "The thought occurs that neither Alfred nor Edward was greatly beloved at Winchester Cathedral; and one reason for
Edward's moving his father's body into the new family shrine next door was that he was surer of sincere prayers there."[45]
Learning
English scholarship almost collapsed during the ninth century, and Alfred was responsible for its revival during his last decade. It is uncertain how far his
programmes continued during his son's reign. English translations of works in Latin made during Alfred's reign continued to be copied, but few original
works are known. The Anglo-Saxon script known as Anglo-Saxon Square miniscule reached maturity in the 930s, and its earliest phases date to Edward's
reign. The main scholarly and scriptorial centres were the cathedral centres of Canterbury, Winchester and Worcester; monasteries did not make a
significant contribution until Æthelstan's reign.[46]
Law and administration
The only surviving original charter from Edward's reign is a grant by Æthelred and Æthelflæd in 901, and is not a charter of Edward himself.[47] In the
same year a meeting at Southampton was attended by his brother and sons, his household thegns and nearly all bishops, but no ealdormen. It was on this
occasion that the king acquired land from the Bishop of Winchester for the foundation of the New Minster, Winchester. No charters survive for the period
from 910 to the king's death in 924, much to the puzzlement and distress of historians. Charters were usually issued when the king made grants of land,
and it is possible that Edward followed a policy of retaining property which came into his hands in order to help finance his campaigns against the
Vikings.[48]
Clause 3 of the law code called I Edward provides that people convincingly charged with perjury shall not be allowed to clear themselves by oath, but
only by ordeal. This is the start of the continuous history in England of trial by ordeal; it is probably mentioned in the laws of King Ine (688 to 726), but
not in later codes such as those of Alfred.[49] The administrative and legal system in Edward's reign may have depended extensively on written records,
almost none of which survive.[50] Edward was one of the few Anglo-Saxon kings to issue laws about bookland (landed vested in a charter which could be
alienated by the holder, as opposed to folkland, which had to pass to heirs of the body). There was increasing confusion in the period as to what was
really bookland, and Edward urged prompt settlement in bookland/folkland disputes, and laid down that jurisdiction belonged to the king and his
offices.[51]
Later life
According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, there was a general submission of rulers in Britain to Edward in 920:
Then [Edward] went from there into the Peak District to Bakewell and ordered a borough to be built in the neighbourhood and manned. And then
the king of the Scots and all the people of the Scots, and Rægnald and the sons of Eadwulf and all who live in Northumbria, both English and
Silver brooch imitating a coin
of Edward the Elder, c. 920,
found in Rome, Italy. British
Museum.
Danish, Norsemen and others, and also the king of the Strathclyde Welsh and all the Strathclyde Welsh, chose him
as father and lord.[52]
This passage was regarded as a straightforward report by most historians until the late twentieth century,[53] and Frank
Stenton observed that "each of the rulers named in this list had something definite to gain from an acknowledgement of
Edward's overlordship".[54] Since the 1980s the 'submission' has been viewed with increasing scepticism, particularly as
the passage in the Chronicle is the only evidence for it, unlike other submissions such as that of 927, for which there is
independent support from literary sources and coins.[55] Alfred Smyth points out that Edward was not in a position to
impose the same conditions on the Scots and the Northumbrians as he could on conquered Vikings, and argued that the
Chronicle presented a treaty between kings as a submission to Wessex.[56] Pauline Stafford observes that the rulers had
met at Bakewell on the border between Mercia and Northumbria, and that meetings on borders were generally
considered to avoid any implication of submission by either side.[57] Davidson points out that the wording "chosen as
father and lord" applied to conquered army groups and burhs, not relations with other kings. In his view:
The idea that this meeting represented a 'submission', while it must remain a possiblity, does however seem
unlikely. The textual context of the chronicler's passage makes his interpretation of the meeting suspect, and ultimately, Edward was in no position
to force the subordination of, or dictate terms to, his fellow kings in Britain.[58]
Edward continued Æthelflæd's policy of founding burhs in the north-west, with ones at Thelwall and Manchester in 919, and Cledematha (Rhuddlan) at
the mouth of the River Clwyd in North Wales in 921.[59]
No charters of Edward dated after 909 have survived, and nothing is known of his relations with the Mercians between 919 and the last year of his life,
when he put down a Mercian and Welsh revolt at Chester. Mercia and the eastern Danelaw were organised into shires at an unknown date in the tenth
century, ignoring traditional boundaries, and historians such as Sean Miller and David Griffiths suggest that Edward's imposition of direct control from
919 is a likely context for a change which ignored Mercian sensibilities. Resentment at the changes, at the imposition of rule by distant Wessex, and at
fiscal demands by Edward's reeves, may have provoked the revolt at Chester. He died at the royal estate of Farndon, twelve miles south of Chester, on 24
July 924, shortly after putting down the revolt, and was buried in the New Minster, Winchester.[60]
Reputation
Post-conquest chroniclers had a high opinion of Edward. John of Worcester described him as "the most invincible King Edward the Elder", who was
generally seen as "inferior to Alfred in book learning", but "equal to him in dignity and power, and superior to him in glory".[61]
Edward is also highly regarded by historians, and he is described by Keynes as "far more than the bellicose bit between Alfred and Æthelstan".[1]
According to Nick Higham: "Edward the Elder is perhaps the most neglected of English kings. He ruled an expanding realm for twenty-five years and
arguably did as much as any other individual to construct a single, south-centred, Anglo-Saxon kingdom, yet posthumously his achievements have been
all but forgotten." In 1999 a conference on his reign was held at the University of Manchester, and the papers given on this occasion were published as a
book in 2001. Prior to this conference, no monographs had been published on Edward's reign, whereas his father has been the subject of numerous
biographies and other studies. A principal reason for the neglect is that very few primary sources for his reign survive, whereas there are many for Alfred.
Edward has also suffered in historians' estimation by comparison with his highly regarded sister, Æthelflæd.[62]
In the view of F. T. Wainwright: "Without detracting from the achievements of Alfred, it is well to remember that it was Edward who reconquered the
Danish Midlands and gave England nearly a century of respite from serious Danish attacks."[63] Higham summarises Edward's legacy as follows:
Under Edward's leadership, the scale of alternative centres of power diminished markedly: the separate court of Mercia was dissolved; the Danish
leaders were in large part brought to heel or expelled; the Welsh princes were constrained from aggression of the borders and even the West Saxon
bishoprics divided. Late Anglo-Saxon England is often described as the most centralised polity in western Europe at the time, with its shires, its
shire-reeves and its systems of regional courts and royal taxation. If so — and the matter remains debatable — much of that centrality derives from
Edward's activities, and he has as good a claim as any other to be considered the architect of medieval England.[64]
Edward's cognomen the Elder was first used in Wulfstan's Life of St Æthelwold at the end of the tenth century, to distinguish him from King Edward the
Martyr.[15]
Marriages and children
Edward had about fourteen children from three marriages.[b]
He first married Ecgwynn around 893.[73] Their children were:
Æthelstan, King of England 924-939[15]
A daughter, perhaps called Edith, married Sihtric Cáech, Viking King of York in 926, who died in 927. Possibly Saint Edith of Polesworth[70]
In c. 900, Edward married Ælfflæd, daughter of Ealdorman Æthelhelm, probably of Wiltshire.[74] Their children were:
Ælfweard, died August 924, a month after his father; possibly King of Wessex for that month[75]
Edwin, drowned at sea 933[76]
Æthelhild, lay sister at Wilton Abbey[77]
Eadgifu (died in or after 951), married Charles the Simple, King of the West Franks, c. 918[78]
Eadflæd, nun at Wilton Abbey[77]
Eadhild, married Hugh the Great, Duke of the Franks in 926[79]
Eadgyth (died 946), in 929/30 married Otto I, future King of the East Franks, and (after Eadgyth's death) Holy Roman Emperor[80]
Ælfgifu, married "a prince near the Alps", perhaps Louis, brother of King Rudolph II of Burgundy[81]
Edward married for a third time, about 919, Eadgifu, the daughter of Sigehelm, Ealdorman of Kent.[82] Their children were
Edmund, King of England 939-946[65]
Eadred, King of England 946-955[65]
Eadburh (died c. 952), Benedictine nun at Nunnaminster, Winchester, and saint[83]
Eadgifu, existence uncertain, possibly the same person as Ælfgifu[84]
Genealogy
Ancestors of Edward the Elder
16. Ealhmund of Kent
8. Egbert of Wessex
4. Æthelwulf of Wessex
2. Alfred the Great
10. Oslac
5. Osburga
1. Edward the Elder
6. Æthelred Mucel
3. Ealhswith
7. Eadburh
Notes
a. The twelfth-century chroniclerR alph of Diceto stated that the coronation took place at Kingston, and this is accepted bSyi mon Keynes, but Sarah Foot thinks that
Winchester is more likely.[17]
b. The order in which Edward's children are listed is based on the family tree in FootÆ's thelstan: the First King of England, which shows sons of each wife before
daughters. The daughters are listed in their birth order according to William of Malmesbury's Gesta Regum Anglorum.[65] The earliest primary sources do not
distinguish whether Sihtric's wife was Æthelstan's full or half sist,e rand a tradition recorded at Bury in the early twelfth century makes her a daughter of Edward's
second wife, Ælfflæd.[66] However, she is described as the daughter of Edward and Ecgwynn in William of Malmesbury's twelfth century Deeds of the English Kings,
and Michael Wood's argument that this is partly based on a lost early life of Æthelstan has been generally accepte[d6.6][67] Modern historians follow William of
Malmesbury's testimony in showing her as Æthelstan's full siste."r[68][65][15] William of Malmesbury did not know her name, but some late sources name her as Edith
or Eadgyth, an identification accepted by some historian[s1.5][68][69] She is also identified in late sources with saint Edith of Polesworth, a view accepted by Alan
Thacker, but dismissed as "dubious" by Sarah Foot, who does however think that it is like ltyhat she entered the cloister in widowhood[.70][71][72]
Citations
1. Keynes 2001, p. 57.
2. Davidson 2001, pp. 200-209.
3. Keynes and Lapidge 1983, pp. 11–12.
4. Stenton 1971, pp. 245–257.
5. Yorke 2001, pp. 25–28.
6. Yorke 2001, pp. 25–26; Miller 2004.
7. Yorke 2001, pp. 27–28.
8. Yorke 2001, p. 25.
9. Yorke 2001, pp. 29–32; Keynes and Lapidge
1983, p. 321, n. 66; Æthelhelm, PASE.
10. Yorke 2001, pp. 31–35.
11. Abels 1998, pp. 294–304.
12. Yorke 2001, p. 37.
13. Nelson 1996, pp. 53–54, 63–66.
14. Yorke 2001, pp. 33–34.
15. Miller 2004.
16. Stenton 1971, p. 321; Lavelle 2009, pp. 53, 61.
17. Keynes 2001, p. 48; Foot 2011, p. 74.
18. Stenton 1971, pp. 321–322; Hart 1992, p. 512–
515; Stafford 2004.
19. Keynes 2001, pp. 44–54.
20. Ryan 2013, p. 298.
21. Stafford 2001, p. 45.
22. Insley 2009, p. 330.
23. Davidson 2001, p. 205; Keynes 2001, p. 43.
24. Davidson 2001, pp. 203–204.
25. Gretsch 2001, p. 287.
26. Coatsworth 2001, pp. 292–296.
27. Sharp 2001, pp. 81–86.
28. Abrams 2001, p. 136.
29. Stenton 1971, p. 324, n. 1; Wainwright 1975,
pp. 308–309; Bailey 2001, p. 113.
30. Miller 2004; Stenton 1971, pp. 324–327.
31. Miller 2004; Stenton 1971, pp. 327–329.
32. Miller 2004; Stenton 1971, pp. 329–331.
33. Abrams 2001, pp. 138–139.
34. Lyon 2001, pp. 67–73, 77.
35. Brooks 1984, pp. 210, 213.
36. Rumble 2001, pp. 230–231.
37. Yorke 2004b; Brooks 1984, pp. 212–213.
38. Rumble 2001, p. 243.
39. Rumble 2001, p. 231.
40. Thacker 2001, pp. 259–260.
41. Rumble 2001, pp. 231–234.
42. Miller 2001, pp. xxv–xxix; Thacker 2001,
pp. 253–254.
43. Rumble 2001, pp. 234–237, 244; Thacker 2001,
p. 254.
44. Thacker 2001, p. 254.
45. Wormald 2001, pp. 274–275.
46. Lapidge 1993, pp. 12–16.
47. Lapidge 1993, p. 13.
48. Keynes 2001, pp. 50–51, 55–56.
49. Campbell 2001, p. 14.
50. Campbell 2001, p. 23.
51. Wormald 2001, pp. 264, 276.
52. Davidson 2001, pp. 200–201.
53. Davidson 2001, p. 201.
54. Stenton 1971, p. 334.
55. Davidson 2001, p. 206–207.
56. Smyth 1984, p. 199.
57. Stafford 1989, p. 33.
58. Davidson 2001, pp. 206, 209.
59. Griffiths 2001, p. 168.
60. Miller 2004; Griffiths 2001, pp. 167, 182–183.
61. Keynes 2001, pp. 40–41.
62. Higham 2001a, pp. 1–4.
63. Wainwright 1975, p. 77.
64. Higham 2001b, p. 311.
65. Foot 2011, p. xv.
66. Thacker 2001, p. 257.
67. Foot 2011, pp. 241–258.
68. Williams 1991, pp. xxix,123.
69. Foot 2011, pp. xv,48 (tentatively).
70. Thacker 2001, pp. 257–258.
71. Foot 2011, p. 48.
72. Foot 2010, p. 243.
73. Foot 2011, p. 11.
74. Yorke 2001, p. 33.
75. Foot 2011, p. 17.
76. Foot 2011, p. 21.
Bibliography
"Æthelhelm 4 (Male)". Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England (PASE). Retrieved 31 December 2016.
Abels, Richard (1998). Alfred the Great: War, Kingship and Culture in Anglo-Saxon England. Harlow, UK: Longman. ISBN 0-582-04047-7.
Abrams, Lesley (2001). "Edward the Elder's Danelaw". In Higham, Nick; Hill, DavidE. dward the Elder 899–924. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. pp. 128–143.I SBN 0-
415-21497-1.
Bailey, Maggie (2001). "Ælfwynn, Second Lady of the Mercians". In Higham, Nick; Hill, aDvid. Edward the Elder 899–924. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. pp. 112–127.
ISBN 0-415-21497-1.
Brooks, Nicholas (1984). The Early History of the Church of Canterbury. Leicester, UK: Leicester University Press.I SBN 0-7185-1182-4.
Campbell, James (2001). "What is not Known About the Reign of Edward the Elder". In Higham, Nick; Hill, DaviEdd. ward the Elder 899–924. Abingdon, UK:
Routledge. pp. 12–24. ISBN 0-415-21497-1.
Coatsworth, Elizabeth (2001). "The Embroideries from the oTmb of St Cuthbert". In Higham, Nick; Hill, David. Edward the Elder 899–924. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
pp. 292–306. ISBN 0-415-21497-1.
Davidson, Michael R. (2001). "The (Non)submission of the Northern Kings in 920". In Higham, N. J.; Hill, D. EHd. ward the Elder, 899–924. London, UK: Routledge.
pp. 200–211. ISBN 0-415-21497-1.
Foot, Sarah (2010). "Dynastic Strategies: The West Saxon Royal Family in Europe". In Rollason, David; Leyse, rConrad; Williams, Hannah. England and the Continent
in the Tenth Century:Studies in Honour of Wilhelm Levison (1876-1947). Brepols. ISBN 9782503532080.
Foot, Sarah (2011). Æthelstan: the First King of England. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-12535-1.
Gretsch, Mechtild (2001). "The Junius Psalter Gloss: Tradition and Innovation". In Higham, Nick; Hill, David. Edward the Elder 899–924. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
pp. 280–291. ISBN 0-415-21497-1.
Griffiths, David (2001). "The North-West Frontier". In Higham, Nick; Hill, David.E dward the Elder 899–924. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. pp. 167–187.I SBN 0-415-
21497-1.
Hart, Cyril (1992). The Danelaw. London, UK: The Hambledon Press.I SBN 1-85285-044-2.
Higham, Nick (2001a). "Edward the Elder's Reputation: An Introduction". In Higham, N. J.; Hill, D. HEd. ward the Elder, 899–924. London, UK: Routledge. pp. 1–11.
ISBN 0-415-21497-1.
Higham, Nick (2001b). "Endpiece". In Higham, N. J.; Hill, D. HE. dward the Elder, 899–924. London, UK: Routledge. pp. 307–31. ISBN 0-415-21497-1.
Insley, Charles (2009). "Southumbria". In Stafford, Pauline. A Companion to the Early Middle Ages: Britain and Ierland c.500- c.1100. Chichester, UK: Wiley-
Blackwell. pp. 322–40. ISBN 978-1-118-42513-8.
Keynes, Simon; Lapidge, Michael, eds. (1983)A. lfred the Great: Asser's Life of King Alfred & Other Contemporary Sources. London, UK: Penguin Classics.
ISBN 978-0-14-044409-4.
Keynes, Simon (2001). "Edward, King of the Anglo-Saxons". In Higham, N. J.; Hill, D. HE. dward the Elder, 899–924. London, UK: Routledge. pp. 40–66.I SBN 0-
415-21497-1.
Lapidge, Michael (1993).A nglo-Latin Literature 900–1066. London, UK: The Hambledon Press.I SBN 1-85285-012-4.
Lavelle, Ryan (2009). "The Politics of Rebellion: The Ætheling Æthelwold and the West Saxon Royal Succession, 899–902". In Skinne, rPatricia. Challenging the
Boundaries of Medieval History: The Legacy of iTmothy Reuter. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols. pp. 51–80.I SBN 978-2-503-52359-0.
Lyon, Stewart (2001). "The coinage of Edward the Elder". In Higham, N. J.; Hill, D. HE.d ward the Elder, 899–924. London, UK: Routledge. pp. 67–78.I SBN 0-415-
21497-1.
Miller, Sean (2001). "Introduction: The History of the New Minste, rWinchester". In Miller, Sean. Charters of the New Minste,r Winchester. Oxford, UK: Oxford
University Press for The British Academy. pp. xxv–xxxvi. ISBN 0-19-726223-6.
Miller, Sean (2004). "Edward [called Edward the Elder] (870s?–924), king of the Anglo-Saxon.s "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press.
doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/8514. Retrieved 6 October 2016. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
Nelson, Janet (1996). "Reconstructing a Royal Family: Reflections on Alfred from Ass,e Cr hapter 2". In Wood, Ian; Lund, Niels.P eople and places in Northern Euorpe
500-1600 : essays in honour of Peter Hayes Sawye.r Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press. pp. 48–66.I SBN 9780851155470.
Rumble, Alexander R. (2001). "Edward and the Churches of Winchester and Wessex". In Higham, Nick; Hill, David.E dward the Elder 899–924. Abingdon, UK:
Routledge. pp. 230–247. ISBN 0-415-21497-1.
Ryan, Martin J. (2013). "Conquest, Reform and the Making of England". In Higham, Niclhaos J.; Ryan, Martin J. The Anglo-Saxon World. New Haven, Connecticut:
Yale University Press. pp. 284–322.I SBN 978-0-300-12534-4.
Sharp, Sheila (2001). "The West Saxon Tradition of Dynastic Marriage, with Special Reference to the Family of Edward the Elder". In Higham, Nick; Hill, David.
Edward the Elder 899–924. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. pp. 79–88.I SBN 0-415-21497-1.
Smyth, Alfred P (1984). Warlords and Holy Men: Scotland AD 80–100. London, UK: Edward Arnold. ISBN 0-7131-6305-4.
Stafford, Pauline (1989). Unification and Conquest: A Political and Social History of England in thee Tnth and Eleventh Centuries. London, UK: Edward Arnold.
ISBN 0-7131-6532-4.
Stafford, Pauline (2001). "Political Women in Mercia, Eighth ot Early Tenth Centuries". In Brown, MichelleP .; Farr, Carol A. Mercia: An Anglo-Saxon Kingdom in
Europe. London, UK: Leicester University Press. pp. 35–49I.S BN 0-7185-0231-0.
Stafford, Pauline (2004). "Eadgifu (b. in or before 904, d. in or after 966), queen of the Anglo-Saxon.s "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University
Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/52307. Retrieved 4 January 2017. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
Stafford, Pauline (2011). "Eadgyth (c.911–946), queen of the East Franks". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press.
doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/93072. Retrieved 3 January 2017. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
Stenton, Frank (1971). Anglo-Saxon England (3rd ed.). Oxford, UK: Oxford University PressI. SBN 978-0-19-280139-5.
Thacker, Alan (2001). "Dynastic Monasteries and Family Cults". In Higham, Nick; Hill, Dvaid. Edward the Elder 899–924. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.I SBN 0-415-
21497-1.
Wainwright, F. T. (1975). Scandinavian England: Collected Papers. Chichester, UK: Phillimore. ISBN 0-900592-65-6.
Williams, Ann (1982). "Princeps Merciorum Gentis: the Family, Career and Connections of Ælfhere, Ealdorman of Mercia 956-983"A. nglo-Saxon England.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press1. 0. ISBN 0 521 24177 4. doi:10.1017/s0263675100003240.
Williams, Ann; Smyth, Alfred P.; Kirby, D. P. (1991). A Biographical Dictionary of Dark Age Britain: England, Scotland, and Wales. Routledge. ISBN 1-85264-047-2.
Wormald, Patrick (2001). "Kingship and Royal Property from Æthelwulf to Edward the Elder". In Higham, Nick; Hill, DaviEdd. ward the Elder 899–924. Abingdon,
UK: Routledge. pp. 264–279. ISBN 0-415-21497-1.
Yorke, Barbara (2001). "Edward as Ætheling". In Higham, Nick; Hill, DavidE. dward the Elder 899–924. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. pp. 25–39.I SBN 0-415-21497-1.
Yorke, Barbara (2004a). "Eadburh [St Eadburh, Eadburga] (921x4–951x3), Benedictine nun". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press.
doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/49419. Retrieved 4 January 2017. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
Yorke, Barbara (2004b). "Frithestan (d. 932/3), bishop of Winchester". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/49428.
Retrieved 1 March 2017. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
Further reading
Smyth, Alfred P. (1996-03-14). King Alfred the Great. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-822989-6.
77. Foot 2011, p. 45.
78. Foot 2011, p. 46; Stafford 2011.
79. Foot 2011, p. 18.
80. Stafford 2011.
81. Foot 2011, p. 51.
82. Stafford 2004.
83. Yorke 2004a; Thacker 2001, pp. 259–260.
84. Foot 2011, pp. 50–51; Stafford 2004.
Wikisource has original
works written by or about:
Edward the Elder
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media related to Edward the
Elder.
External links
Edward 2 at Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England
The Laws of King Edward the Elder
Edward the Elder Coinage Regulations
Edward the Elder at Find a Grave
Preceded by
Alfred the Great
King of the Anglo-
Saxons
899–924
Succeeded by
Æthelstan
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House of Wessex Monarchs of England before 1066
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Edward married of Wiltshire, Ælfflæd in 899. Ælfflæd was born in 880 in Devon, England; died in 920 in Winchester Castle, Winchester, Hampshire, England; was buried in 920 in Wilton Abbey, Wilton (near Salisbury), Wiltshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• FSID: LZF7-33W

Notes:

919 AD in Wilton Abbey, Wilton (near Salisbury), Wiltshire, England; Around 919-920, Edward set aside Aelflaed and she became a nun at Wilton where she was joined by two of her daughters. It was at this time Edward married Eadgifu, most likely to gain control of her landholdings since he already had plenty of heirs.

Ælfflæd was the second wife of the English king Edward the Elder.
Their children were:
Ælfweard (briefly king of Wessex in 924)
Edwin (d. 933)
Eadgifu, wife of Charles the Simple, king of West Francia
Eadhild, wife of Hugh the Great, duke of the Franks
Eadgyth, wife of Emperor Otto I
Ælfgifu, wife of Louis, brother of Rudolf of Burgundy?
Eadflæd, nun at Wilton
Æthelhild, vowess at Wilton

Edmund I, the future king who was a son of Edward's third wife, Eadgifu, was born in 920 or 921, so Ælfflæd's marriage must have ended in the late 910s. According to William of Malmesbury, Edward put aside Ælfflæd in order to marry Eadgifu, a claim which Sean Miller viewed sceptically, but it is accepted by other historians.She is reported to have retired to Wilton Abbey, where she was joined by two of her daughters, Eadflæd and Æthelhild, and all three were buried there.

Ælfflæd was probably the daughter of ealdorman Æthelhelm of Wiltshire who died in 897. Genealogist David H. Kelley and historian Pauline Stafford have identified him as Æthelhelm, a son of Edward's uncle, King Æthelred of Wessex. Other historians have rejected the idea, arguing that it does not appear to have been the practice for Æthelings (princes of the royal dynasty who were eligible to be king) to become ealdormen, that in a grant from King Alfred to Ealdorman Æthelhelm there is no reference to kinship between them, and that the hostile reception to King Eadwig's marriage to Ælfgifu, his third cousin once removed, shows that a marriage between Edward and his first cousin once removed would have been forbidden as incestuous.

Ælfflæd married King Edward around 899. She only attested one charter, dated 901, where she was described as conjux regis. She never attested as queen. and although she was previously thought to have been consecrated as queen when Edward was crowned in 900, this is now thought unlikely. In 1827 the tomb of St Cuthbert in Durham Cathedral was opened, and among the objects found were a stole and maniple which had inscriptions showing that they had been commissioned by Ælfflæd for bishop Frithestan of Winchester. However, they had been donated by her step-son king Æthelstan to Cuthbert's tomb, probably in 934.

Ælfflæd had two sons, Ælfweard, who may have become king of Wessex on his father's death in 924 but died himself within a month, and Edwin, who was drowned in 933. She also had five or six daughters, including Eadgifu, wife of Charles the Simple, king of West Francia, Eadhild, who married Hugh the Great, duke of the Franks, and Eadgyth, wife of Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor. In around 967 Hrotsvitha, a nun of Gandersheim, wrote a eulogy of the deeds of Otto I in which she contrasted the nobility of Eadgyth's mother with the inferior descent of Æthelstan's mother.

Edmund I, the future king who was a son of Edward's third wife, Eadgifu, was born in 920 or 921, so Ælfflæd's marriage must have ended in the late 910s. According to William of Malmesbury, Edward put aside Ælfflæd in order to marry Eadgifu, a claim which Sean Miller viewed sceptically, but it is accepted by other historians.She is reported to have retired to Wilton Abbey, where she was joined by two of her daughters, Eadflæd and Æthelhild, and all three were buried there.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Nickname: The Great
• Appointments / Titles: Between 23 Apr 871 and 26 Oct 899; King of Wessex

Notes:

Alfred the Great

King of Wessex
Reign 23 April 871 – 26 October 899
Predecessor Æthelred
Successor Edward the Elder
Born 849 Wantage, then in Berkshire, now Oxfordshire
Died 26 October 899 (around 50) Winchester
Burial c. 1100 Hyde Abbey, Winchester, Hampshire, now lost
Spouse Ealhswith
Issue
Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians
Edward, King of Wessex
Æthelgifu, abbess of Shaftesbury
Æthelweard of Wessex
Ælfthryth, Countess of Flanders
Full name
Ælfred of Wessex
House Wessex
Father Æthelwulf, King of Wessex
Mother Osburh

Alfred the Great
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Alfred the Great (Old English: Ælfrēd[a], Ælfrǣd[b], "elf counsel" or "wise elf"; 849 – 26 October 899) was King of Wessex from 871 to 899.

Alfred successfully defended his kingdom against the Viking
attempt at conquest, and by the time of his death had become
the dominant ruler in England.[1] He is one of only two
English monarchs to be given the epithet "the Great", the
other being the Scandinavian Cnut the Great. He was also the
first King of the West Saxons to style himself "King of the
Anglo-Saxons". Details of Alfred's life are described in a
work by the 10th-century Welsh scholar and bishop Asser.
Alfred had a reputation as a learned and merciful man of a
gracious and level-headed nature who encouraged education,
proposing that primary education be taught in English, and
improved his kingdom's legal system, military structure and
his people's quality of life. In 2002 Alfred was ranked
number 14 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons.

Childhood
Alfred was born in the village of Wanating, now Wantage, historically in Berkshire but now in Oxfordshire. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf of Wessex by his first wife, Osburh.[c]

In 853, at the age of four, Alfred is reported by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to have been sent to Rome where he
was confirmed by Pope Leo IV, who "anointed him as king".[3] Victorian writers later interpreted this as an
anticipatory coronation in preparation for his eventual succession to the throne of Wessex. This is unlikely; his
succession could not have been foreseen at the time as Alfred had three living elder brothers. A letter of Leo IV
shows that Alfred was made a "consul"; a misinterpretation of this investiture, deliberate or accidental, could
explain later confusion.[4] It may also be based on Alfred's later having accompanied his father on a pilgrimage
to Rome where he spent some time at the court of Charles the Bald, King of the Franks, around 854–855.
On their return from Rome in 856 Æthelwulf was deposed by his son Æthelbald. With civil war looming the
magnates of the realm met in council to hammer out a compromise. Æthelbald would retain the western shires
(i.e. historical Wessex), and Æthelwulf would rule in the east. When King Æthelwulf died in 858 Wessex was
ruled by three of Alfred's brothers in succession: Æthelbald, Æthelberht and Æthelred.[5]

Bishop Asser tells the story of how as a child Alfred won as a prize a book of Saxon poems, offered by his
mother to the first of her children able to memorize it.[6] Legend also has it that the young Alfred spent time in
Ireland seeking healing. Alfred was troubled by health problems throughout his life. It is thought that he may
have suffered from Crohn's disease.[7] Statues of Alfred in Winchester and Wantage portray him as a great
warrior. Evidence suggests he was not physically strong and, though not lacking in courage, he was noted more
for his intellect than as a warlike character.[8]
Reigns of Alfred's brothers
During the short reigns of the older two of his three elder brothers, Æthelbald of Wessex and Æthelberht of
Wessex, Alfred is not mentioned. An army of Danes which the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle described as the Great
Heathen Army had landed in East Anglia with the intent of conquering the four kingdoms that constituted
Anglo-Saxon England in 865.[9] It was with the backdrop of a rampaging Viking army that Alfred's public life
began with the accession of his third brother, the 18 year old King Æthelred of Wessex, in 865 when Alfred was
16.
During this period Bishop Asser applied to Alfred the unique title of "secundarius", which may indicate a
position akin to that of the Celtic "tanist", a recognised successor closely associated with the reigning monarch.
This arrangement may have been sanctioned by Alfred's father, or by the Witan, to guard against the danger of
a disputed succession should Æthelred fall in battle. The arrangement of crowning a successor as royal prince
and military commander is well known among other Germanic tribes, such as the Swedes and Franks, to whom
the Anglo-Saxons were closely related.
Fighting the Viking invasion
A map of the route taken by the
Viking Great Heathen Army that
arrived in England from Denmark,
Norway and southern Sweden in 865.
In 868 Alfred is recorded as fighting beside Æthelred in an unsuccessful
attempt to keep the Great Heathen Army, led by Ivar the Boneless, out
of the adjoining Kingdom of Mercia.[10] At the end of 870 the Danes
arrived in his homeland. The year which followed has been called
"Alfred's year of battles". Nine engagements were fought with varying
outcomes, though the places and dates of two of these battles have not
been recorded.
In Berkshire a successful skirmish at the Battle of Englefield on 31
December 870 was followed by a severe defeat at the siege and Battle
of Reading by Ivar's brother Halfdan Ragnarsson on 5 January 871.
Four days later the Anglo-Saxons won a brilliant victory at the Battle of
Ashdown on the Berkshire Downs, possibly near Compton or Aldworth.
Alfred is particularly credited with the success of this last battle.[11]
Later that month, on 22 January, the Saxons were defeated at the Battle
of Basing. They were defeated again on 22 March at the Battle of
Merton (perhaps Marden in Wiltshire or Martin in Dorset).[11] Æthelred
died shortly afterwards on 23 April.
King at war
Early struggles, defeat and flight
In April 871 King Æthelred died and Alfred succeeded to the throne of Wessex and the burden of its defence,
even though Æthelred left two under-age sons, Æthelhelm and Æthelwold. This was in accordance with the
agreement that Æthelred and Alfred had made earlier that year in an assembly at "Swinbeorg". The brothers
had agreed that whichever of them outlived the other would inherit the personal property that King Æthelwulf
had left jointly to his sons in his will. The deceased's sons would receive only whatever property and riches
their father had settled upon them, and whatever additional lands their uncle had acquired. The unstated
premise was that the surviving brother would be king. Given the ongoing Danish invasion, and the youth of his
nephews, Alfred's accession probably went uncontested.
While he was busy with the burial ceremonies for his brother, the Danes defeated the Saxon army in his
absence at an unnamed spot, and then again in his presence at Wilton in May.[11] The defeat at Wilton smashed
any remaining hope that Alfred could drive the invaders from his kingdom. He was forced instead to make
peace with them, according to sources that do not tell what the terms of the peace were. Bishop Asser claimed
that the pagans agreed to vacate the realm and made good their promise.[12]
Indeed, the Viking army did withdraw from Reading in the autumn of 871 to take up winter quarters in Mercian
London. Although not mentioned by Asser, or by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Alfred probably also paid the
Vikings cash to leave, much as the Mercians were to do in the following year.[12] Hoards dating to the Viking
occupation of London in 871/2 have been excavated at Croydon, Gravesend, and Waterloo Bridge. These finds
hint at the cost involved in making peace with the Vikings. For the next five years the Danes occupied other
parts of England.[13]
In 876 under their new leader, Guthrum, the Danes slipped past the Saxon army and attacked and occupied
Wareham in Dorset. Alfred blockaded them but was unable to take Wareham by assault.[11] Accordingly he
negotiated a peace which involved an exchange of hostages and oaths, which the Danes swore on a "holy
ring"[14] associated with the worship of Thor.[15] The Danes broke their word and, after killing all the hostages,
slipped away under cover of night to Exeter in Devon.[16]
A Victorian portrayal of the
12th-century legend of
Alfred burning the cakes
King Alfred's Tower (1772) on the
supposed site of "Egbert's Stone", the
mustering place before the Battle of
Edington.[d]
Alfred blockaded the Viking ships in Devon and, with a relief fleet having been
scattered by a storm, the Danes were forced to submit. The Danes withdrew to
Mercia. In January 878 the Danes made a sudden attack on Chippenham, a
royal stronghold in which Alfred had been staying over Christmas, "and most of
the people they killed, except the King Alfred, and he with a little band made
his way by wood and swamp, and after Easter he made a fort at Athelney in the
marshes of Somerset, and from that fort kept fighting against the foe."[17] From
his fort at Athelney, an island in the marshes near North Petherton, Alfred was
able to mount an effective resistance movement, rallying the local militias from
Somerset, Wiltshire and Hampshire.[11]
A legend, originating from 12th century chronicles,[2] tells how when he first
fled to the Somerset Levels, Alfred was given shelter by a peasant woman who,
unaware of his identity, left him to watch some wheaten cakes she had left
cooking on the fire. Preoccupied with the problems of his kingdom Alfred
accidentally let the cakes burn and was roundly scolded by the woman upon her return.
878 was the low-water mark in the history of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. With all the other kingdoms having
fallen to the Vikings Wessex alone was still resisting.[18]
Counter-attack and victory
In the seventh week after Easter (4–10 May 878), around Whitsuntide,
Alfred rode to Egbert's Stone east of Selwood where he was met by "all
the people of Somerset and of Wiltshire and of that part of Hampshire
which is on this side of the sea (that is, west of Southampton Water),
and they rejoiced to see him".[17] Alfred's emergence from his
marshland stronghold was part of a carefully planned offensive that
entailed raising the fyrds of three shires. This meant not only that the
king had retained the loyalty of ealdormen, royal reeves and king's
thegns, who were charged with levying and leading these forces, but
that they had maintained their positions of authority in these localities
well enough to answer his summons to war. Alfred's actions also
suggest a system of scouts and messengers.[19]
Alfred won a decisive victory in the ensuing Battle of Edington which
may have been fought near Westbury, Wiltshire.[11] He then pursued the
Danes to their stronghold at Chippenham and starved them into
submission. One of the terms of the surrender was that Guthrum convert
to Christianity. Three weeks later the Danish king and 29 of his chief men were baptised at Alfred's court at
Aller, near Athelney, with Alfred receiving Guthrum as his spiritual son.[11]
According to Asser:
The unbinding of the Chrisom [e] took place with great ceremony eight days later at the royal estate
at Wedmore[21]
While at Wedmore Alfred and Guthrum negotiated what some historians have called the Treaty of Wedmore,
but it was to be some years after the cessation of hostilities that a formal treaty was signed.[22] Under the terms
of the so-called Treaty of Wedmore the converted Guthrum was required to leave Wessex and return to East
Anglia. Consequently in 879 the Viking army left Chippenham and made its way to Cirencester. [21] The formal
A coin of Alfred, king of Wessex,
London, 880 (based upon a Roman
model).
Obv: King with royal band in profile,
with legend: ÆLFRED REX "King
Ælfred"
Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum, preserved in Old English in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (Manuscript
383), and in a Latin compilation known as "Quadripartitus", was negotiated later, perhaps in 879 or 880, when
King Ceolwulf II of Mercia was deposed.[23]
That treaty divided up the kingdom of Mercia. By its terms the boundary between Alfred's and Guthrum's
kingdoms was to run up the River Thames to the River Lea, follow the Lea to its source (near Luton), from
there extend in a straight line to Bedford, and from Bedford follow the River Ouse to Watling Street.[24]
In other words, Alfred succeeded to Ceolwulf's kingdom consisting of western Mercia, and Guthrum
incorporated the eastern part of Mercia into an enlarged kingdom of East Anglia (henceforward known as the
Danelaw). By terms of the treaty, moreover, Alfred was to have control over the Mercian city of London and its
mints—at least for the time being.[25] The disposition of Essex, held by West Saxon kings since the days of
Egbert, is unclear from the treaty though, given Alfred's political and military superiority, it would have been
surprising if he had conceded any disputed territory to his new godson.
Quiet years, restoration of Lond on (880s)
With the signing of the Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum, an event most
commonly held to have taken place around 880 when Guthrum's people
began settling East Anglia, Guthrum was neutralised as a threat.[26] The
Viking army, which had stayed at Fulham during the winter of 878-879,
sailed for Ghent and was active on the continent from 879-892.[27][28]
Alfred was still forced to contend with a number of Danish threats. A
year later, in 881, Alfred fought a small sea battle against four Danish
ships "on the high seas",[27] Two of the ships were destroyed and the
others surrendered to Alfred's forces.[29] Similar small skirmishes with
independent Viking raiders would have occurred for much of the period,
as they had for decades.
In 883—though there is some debate over the year—King Alfred,
because of his support and his donation of alms to Rome, received a
number of gifts from Pope Marinus.[30] Among these gifts was reputed
to be a piece of the true cross, a great treasure for the devout Saxon
king. According to Asser, because of Pope Marinus' friendship with
King Alfred, the pope granted an exemption to any Anglo-Saxons
residing within Rome from tax or tribute.[31]
After the signing of the treaty with Guthrum, Alfred was spared any large-scale conflicts for some time.
Despite this relative peace the king was still forced to deal with a number of Danish raids and incursions.
Among these was a raid in Kent, an allied kingdom in South East England, during the year 885, which was
quite possibly the largest raid since the battles with Guthrum. Asser's account of the raid places the Danish
raiders at the Saxon city of Rochester[27] where they built a temporary fortress in order to besiege the city. In
response to this incursion Alfred led an Anglo-Saxon force against the Danes who, instead of engaging the
army of Wessex, fled to their beached ships and sailed to another part of Britain. The retreating Danish force
supposedly left Britain the following summer.[32]
Not long after the failed Danish raid in Kent, Alfred dispatched his fleet to East Anglia. The purpose of this
expedition is debated, though Asser claims that it was for the sake of plunder.[32] After travelling up the River
Stour the fleet was met by Danish vessels that numbered 13 or 16 (sources vary on the number) and a battle
ensued.[32] The Anglo-Saxon fleet emerged victorious and, as Huntingdon accounts, "laden with spoils".[33]
A plaque in the City of London noting
the restoration of the Roman walled
city by Alfred.
Map of Britain in 886
The victorious fleet was then caught unawares when attempting to leave the River Stour and was attacked by a
Danish force at the mouth of the river. The Danish fleet defeated Alfred's fleet, which may have been weakened
in the previous engagement.[34]
A year later, in 886, Alfred reoccupied the city of London and set out to
make it habitable again.[35] Alfred entrusted the city to the care of his
son-in-law Æthelred, ealdorman of Mercia. The restoration of London
progressed through the latter half of the 880s and is believed to have
revolved around: a new street plan; added fortifications in addition to
the existing Roman walls; and, some believe, the construction of
matching fortifications on the south bank of the River Thames.[36]
This is also the period in which almost all chroniclers agree that the
Saxon people of pre-unification England submitted to Alfred.[37] This
was not, however, the point at which Alfred came to be known as King
of England; in fact he would never adopt the title for himself.
Between the restoration of London and the resumption of large-scale Danish attacks in the early 890s, Alfred's
reign was rather uneventful. The relative peace of the late 880s was marred by the death of Alfred's sister,
Æthelswith, en route to Rome in 888.[38] In the same year the Archbishop of Canterbury, Æthelred, also died.
One year later Guthrum, or Athelstan by his baptismal name, Alfred's former enemy and king of East Anglia,
died and was buried in Hadleigh, Suffolk.[39]
Guthrum's passing changed the political landscape for Alfred. The resulting
power vacuum stirred up other power–hungry warlords eager to take his
place in the following years. The quiet years of Alfred's life were coming
to a close and war was on the horizon.[40]
Further Viking attacks repelled (890s)
After another lull, in the autumn of 892 or 893, the Danes attacked again.
Finding their position in mainland Europe precarious, they crossed to
England in 330 ships in two divisions. They entrenched themselves, the
larger body, at Appledore, Kent, and the lesser under Hastein, at Milton,
also in Kent. The invaders brought their wives and children with them
indicating a meaningful attempt at conquest and colonisation. Alfred, in
893 or 894, took up a position from which he could observe both forces.[41]
While he was in talks with Hastein the Danes at Appledore broke out and
struck northwestwards. They were overtaken by Alfred's eldest son,
Edward, and were defeated in a general engagement at Farnham in Surrey.
They took refuge on an island at Thorney, on the River Colne between Buckinghamshire and Middlesex, where
they were blockaded and forced to give hostages and promise to leave Wessex.[42][41] They then went to Essex
and, after suffering another defeat at Benfleet, joined with Hastein's force at Shoebury.[42]
Alfred had been on his way to relieve his son at Thorney when he heard that the Northumbrian and East
Anglian Danes were besieging Exeter and an unnamed stronghold on the North Devon shore. Alfred at once
hurried westward and raised the Siege of Exeter. The fate of the other place is not recorded.[43]
Meanwhile the force under Hastein set out to march up the Thames Valley, possibly with the idea of assisting
their friends in the west. They were met by a large force under the three great ealdormen of Mercia, Wiltshire
and Somerset and, forced to head off to the northwest, being finally overtaken and blockaded at Buttington.
(Some identify this with Buttington Tump at the mouth of the River Wye, others with Buttington near
Alfred the Great silver offering penny,
871–899. Legend: AELFRED REX
SAXONUM "Ælfred King of the
Saxons".
Welshpool.) An attempt to break through the English lines was defeated. Those who escaped retreated to
Shoebury. After collecting reinforcements, they made a sudden dash across England and occupied the ruined
Roman walls of Chester. The English did not attempt a winter blockade but contented themselves with
destroying all the supplies in the district.[43]
Early in 894 or 895 lack of food obliged the Danes to retire once more to Essex. At the end of the year the
Danes drew their ships up the River Thames and the River Lea and fortified themselves twenty miles (32 km)
north of London. A direct attack on the Danish lines failed but, later in the year, Alfred saw a means of
obstructing the river so as to prevent the egress of the Danish ships. The Danes realised that they were
outmanoeuvred. They struck off north-westwards and wintered at Cwatbridge near Bridgnorth. The next year,
896 (or 897), they gave up the struggle. Some retired to Northumbria, some to East Anglia. Those who had no
connections in England withdrew back to the continent.[43]
Military reorganisation
The Germanic tribes who invaded Britain in the fifth and sixth centuries
relied upon the unarmoured infantry supplied by their tribal levy, or
fyrd, and it was upon this system that the military power of the several
kingdoms of early Anglo-Saxon England depended.[44] The fyrd was a
local militia in the Anglo-Saxon shire in which all freemen had to serve;
those who refused military service were subject to fines or loss of their
land.[45] According to the law code of King Ine of Wessex, issued in
about 694:
If a nobleman who holds land neglects military service, he
shall pay 120 shillings and forfeit his land; a nobleman who
holds no land shall pay 60 shillings; a commoner shall pay
a fine of 30 shillings for neglecting military service.[46]
Wessex's history of failures preceding his success in 878 emphasised to
Alfred that the traditional system of battle he had inherited played to the
Danes' advantage. While both the Anglo-Saxons and the Danes attacked settlements to seize wealth and other
resources, they employed very different strategies. In their raids the Anglo-Saxons traditionally preferred to
attack head-on by assembling their forces in a shield wall, advancing against their target and overcoming the
oncoming wall marshaled against them in defence.[47]
In contrast the Danes preferred to choose easy targets, mapping cautious forays designed to avoid risking all
their accumulated plunder with high-stake attacks for more. Alfred determined their strategy was to launch
smaller scaled attacks from a secure and reinforced defensible base to which they could retreat should their
raiders meet strong resistance.[47]
These bases were prepared in advance, often by capturing an estate and augmenting its defences with
surrounding ditches, ramparts and palisades. Once inside the fortification, Alfred realised, the Danes enjoyed
the advantage, better situated to outlast their opponents or crush them with a counter-attack as the provisions
and stamina of the besieging forces waned.[47]
The means by which the Anglo-Saxons marshaled forces to defend against marauders also left them vulnerable
to the Vikings. It was the responsibility of the shire fyrd to deal with local raids. The king could call up the
national militia to defend the kingdom but, in the case of the Viking hit-and-run raids, problems with
communication, and raising supplies meant that the national militia could not be mustered quickly enough. It
was only after the raids were underway that a call went out to landowners to gather their men for battle. Large
A map of burhs named in the Burghal
Hidage.
regions could be devastated before the fyrd could assemble and arrive. And although the landowners were
obliged to the king to supply these men when called, during the attacks in 878 many of them opportunistically
abandoned their king and collaborated with Guthrum.[48][49]
With these lessons in mind Alfred capitalised on the relatively peaceful years immediately following his victory
at Edington by focusing on an ambitious restructuring of his kingdom's military defences. On a trip to Rome
Alfred had stayed with Charles the Bald and it is possible that he may have studied how the Carolingian kings
had dealt with the Viking problem. Learning from their experiences he was able to put together a system of
taxation and defence for his own kingdom. Also there had been a system of fortifications in pre-Viking Mercia
that may have been an influence. So when the Viking raids resumed in 892 Alfred was better prepared to
confront them with a standing, mobile field army, a network of garrisons, and a small fleet of ships navigating
the rivers and estuaries.[50][51][52]
Administration and taxation
Tenants in Anglo-Saxon England had a threefold obligation based on their landholding: the so-called "common
burdens" of military service, fortress work, and bridge repair. This threefold obligation has traditionally been
called "trinoda neccessitas" or "trimoda neccessitas".[53] The Old English name for the fine due for neglecting
military service was "fierdwite" or "fyrdwitee".[46]
To maintain the burhs, and to reorganise the fyrd as a standing army, Alfred expanded the tax and conscription
system based on the productivity of a tenant's landholding. The "hide" was the basic unit of the system on
which the tenant's public obligations were assessed. A "hide" is thought to represent the amount of land
required to support one family. The "hide" would differ in size according to the value and resources of the land,
and the landowner would have to provide service based on how many "hides" he owned.[53][54]
Burghal system
At the centre of Alfred's reformed military defence system was the
network of burhs, distributed at strategic points throughout the
kingdom.[55] There were thirty-three in total, spaced approximately 30
kilometres (19 miles) apart, enabling the military to confront attacks
anywhere in the kingdom within a single day.[56][57]
Alfred's burhs (later termed boroughs) ranged from former Roman
towns, such as Winchester, where the stone walls were repaired and
ditches added, to massive earthen walls surrounded by wide ditches,
probably reinforced with wooden revetments and palisades, such as at
Burpham, Sussex.[58][59] The size of the burhs ranged from tiny
outposts such as Pilton to large fortifications in established towns, the
largest being at Winchester.[60]
A contemporary document now known as the Burghal Hidage provides an insight into how the system worked.
It lists the "hidage" for each of the fortified towns contained in the document. For example, Wallingford had a
"hidage" of 2400, which meant that the landowners there were responsible for supplying and feeding 2,400
men, the number sufficient for maintaining 9,900 feet (3.0 kilometres) of wall.[61] A total of 27,071 soldiers
were needed system-wide, or approximately one in four of all the free men in Wessex.[62]
Many of the burhs were twin towns that straddled a river and were connected by a fortified bridge, like those
built by Charles the Bald a generation before.[51] The double-burh blocked passage on the river, forcing Viking
ships to navigate under a garrisoned bridge lined with men armed with stones, spears, or arrows. Other burhs
were sited near fortified royal villas, allowing the king better control over his strongholds.[63] The burhs were
also interconnected by a road system maintained for army use (known as "herepaths"). These roads would
allow an army to be quickly assembled, sometimes from more than one burh, to confront the Viking invader.[64]
This network posed significant obstacles to Viking invaders, especially those laden with booty. The system
threatened Viking routes and communications making it far more dangerous for the Viking raiders. The Vikings
lacked both the equipment necessary to undertake a siege against a burh and a developed doctrine of siegecraft,
having tailored their methods of fighting to rapid strikes and unimpeded retreats to well-defended fortifications.
The only means left to them was to starve the burh into submission, but this gave the king time to send his
mobile field army or garrisons from neighbouring burhs along the well-maintained army roads. In such cases
the Vikings were extremely vulnerable to pursuit by the king's joint military forces.[65] Alfred's burh system
posed such a formidable challenge against Viking attack that when the Vikings returned in 892, and
successfully stormed a half-made, poorly garrisoned fortress up the Lympne estuary in Kent, the Anglo-Saxons
were able to limit their penetration to the outer frontiers of Wessex and Mercia.[66]
Alfred's burghal system was revolutionary in its strategic conception and potentially expensive in its execution.
His contemporary biographer Asser wrote that many nobles balked at the new demands placed upon them even
though they were for "the common needs of the kingdom".[67][68]
English navy
Alfred also tried his hand at naval design. In 896[69] he ordered the construction of a small fleet, perhaps a
dozen or so longships that, at 60 oars, were twice the size of Viking warships. This was not, as the Victorians
asserted, the birth of the English Navy. Wessex had possessed a royal fleet before this. King Athelstan of Kent
and Ealdorman Ealhhere had defeated a Viking fleet in 851 capturing nine ships,[70] and Alfred himself had
conducted naval actions in 882.[71]
But, clearly, the author of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and probably Alfred himself regarded 897 as marking an
important development in the naval power of Wessex. The chronicler flattered his royal patron by boasting that
Alfred's ships were not only larger, but swifter, steadier and rode higher in the water than either Danish or
Frisian ships. It is probable that, under the classical tutelage of Asser, Alfred utilised the design of Greek and
Roman warships, with high sides, designed for fighting rather than for navigation.[72]
Alfred had seapower in mind—if he could intercept raiding fleets before they landed, he could spare his
kingdom from being ravaged. Alfred's ships may have been superior in conception. In practice they proved to
be too large to manoeuvre well in the close waters of estuaries and rivers, the only places in which a naval
battle could occur.[73]
The warships of the time were not designed to be ship killers but rather troop carriers. It has been suggested
that, like sea battles in late Viking age Scandinavia, these battles may have entailed a ship coming alongside an
enemy vessel, lashing the two ships together and then boarding the enemy craft. The result was effectively a
land battle involving hand-to-hand fighting on board the two lashed vessels.[74]
In the one recorded naval engagement in 896[75][69] Alfred's new fleet of nine ships intercepted six Viking
ships in the mouth of an unidentified river along the south of England. The Danes had beached half their ships
and gone inland, either to rest their rowers or to forage for food. Alfred's ships immediately moved to block
their escape to the sea. The three Viking ships afloat attempted to break through the English lines. Only one
made it; Alfred's ships intercepted the other two.[69]
Lashing the Viking boats to their own the English crew boarded the enemy's vessels and proceeded to kill
everyone on board. The one ship that escaped managed to do so only because all of Alfred's heavy ships
became grounded when the tide went out.[74] What ensued was a land battle between the crews of the grounded
ships. The Danes, heavily outnumbered, would have been wiped out if the tide had not risen. When that
occurred the Danes rushed back to their boats which, being lighter with shallower drafts, were freed before
A silver coin of Alfred.
Alfred's ships. Helplessly the English watched as the Vikings rowed past them.[74] The pirates had suffered so
many casualties (120 Danes dead against 62 Frisians and English) that they had difficulty putting out to sea. All
were too damaged to row around Sussex and two were driven against the Sussex coast (possibly at Selsey
Bill).[69][74] The shipwrecked sailors were brought before Alfred at Winchester and hanged.[69]
Legal reform
In the late 880s or early 890s Alfred issued a long domboc or law code
consisting of his "own" laws, followed by a code issued by his late
seventh-century predecessor King Ine of Wessex.[76] Together these
laws are arranged into 120 chapters. In his introduction Alfred explains
that he gathered together the laws he found in many "synod-books" and
"ordered to be written many of the ones that our forefathers observed—
those that pleased me; and many of the ones that did not please me, I
rejected with the advice of my councillors, and commanded them to be
observed in a different way".[77]
Alfred singled out in particular the laws that he "found in the days of
Ine, my kinsman, or Offa, king of the Mercians, or King Æthelberht of
Kent who first among the English people received baptism". He
appended, rather than integrated, the laws of Ine into his code and,
although he included, as had Æthelbert, a scale of payments in compensation for injuries to various body parts
the two injury tariffs are not aligned. Offa is not known to have issued a law code leading historian Patrick
Wormald to speculate that Alfred had in mind the legatine capitulary of 786 that was presented to Offa by two
papal legates.[78]
About a fifth of the law code is taken up by Alfred's introduction which includes translations into English of the
Ten Commandments, a few chapters from the Book of Exodus, and the "Apostolic Letter" from the Acts of the
Apostles (15:23–29). The Introduction may best be understood as Alfred's meditation upon the meaning of
Christian law.[79] It traces the continuity between God's gift of law to Moses to Alfred's own issuance of law to
the West Saxon people. By doing so,it linked the holy past to the historical present and represented Alfred's
law-giving as a type of divine legislation.[80]
Similarly Alfred divided his code into 120 chapters because 120 was the age at which Moses died and, in the
number-symbolism of early medieval biblical exegetes, 120 stood for law.[81] The link between the Mosaic
Law and Alfred's code is the "Apostolic Letter" which explained that Christ "had come not to shatter or annul
the commandments but to fulfill them; and he taught mercy and meekness". (Intro, 49.1) The mercy that Christ
infused into Mosaic Law underlies the injury tariffs that figure so prominently in barbarian law codes since
Christian synods "established, through that mercy which Christ taught, that for almost every misdeed at the first
offence secular lords might with their permission receive without sin the monetary compensation which they
then fixed".[82]
The only crime that could not be compensated with a payment of money was treachery to a lord "since
Almighty God adjudged none for those who despised Him, nor did Christ, the Son of God, adjudge any for the
one who betrayed Him to death; and He commanded everyone to love his lord as Himself".[82] Alfred's
transformation of Christ's commandment, from "Love your neighbour as yourself" (Matt. 22:39–40) to love
your secular lord as you would love the Lord Christ himself, underscores the importance that Alfred placed
upon lordship which he understood as a sacred bond instituted by God for the governance of man.[83]
When one turns from the domboc's introduction to the laws themselves it is difficult to uncover any logical
arrangement. The impression one receives is of a hodgepodge of miscellaneous laws. The law code, as it has
been preserved, is singularly unsuitable for use in lawsuits. In fact several of Alfred's laws contradicted the
laws of Ine that form an integral part of the code. Patrick Wormald's explanation is that Alfred's law code
should be understood not as a legal manual but as an ideological manifesto of kingship "designed more for
symbolic impact than for practical direction".[84] In practical terms the most important law in the code may
well have been the very first: "We enjoin, what is most necessary, that each man keep carefully his oath and his
pledge" which expresses a fundamental tenet of Anglo-Saxon law.[85]
Alfred devoted considerable attention and thought to judicial matters. Asser underscores his concern for
judicial fairness. Alfred, according to Asser, insisted upon reviewing contested judgments made by his
ealdormen and reeves and "would carefully look into nearly all the judgements which were passed [issued] in
his absence anywhere in the realm to see whether they were just or unjust".[86] A charter from the reign of his
son Edward the Elder depicts Alfred as hearing one such appeal in his chamber while washing his hands.[87]
Asser represents Alfred as a Solomonic judge, painstaking in his own judicial investigations and critical of
royal officials who rendered unjust or unwise judgments. Although Asser never mentions Alfred's law code he
does say that Alfred insisted that his judges be literate so that they could apply themselves "to the pursuit of
wisdom". The failure to comply with this royal order was to be punished by loss of office.[88]
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, commissioned at the time of Alfred, was probably written to promote unification
of England,[89] whereas Asser's The Life of King Alfred promoted Alfred's achievements and personal qualities.
It was possible that the document was designed this way so that it could be disseminated in Wales, as Alfred
had recently acquired overlordship of that country.[89]
Foreign relations
Asser speaks grandiosely of Alfred's relations with foreign powers but little definite information is
available.[43] His interest in foreign countries is shown by the insertions which he made in his translation of
Orosius. He corresponded with Elias III, the Patriarch of Jerusalem,[43] and embassies to Rome conveying the
English alms to the Pope were fairly frequent.[51][f] Around 890 Wulfstan of Hedeby undertook a journey from
Hedeby on Jutland along the Baltic Sea to the Prussian trading town of Truso. Alfred personally collected
details of this trip.[90]
Alfred's relations with the Celtic princes in the western half of Britain are clearer. Comparatively early in his
reign, according to Asser, the southern Welsh princes, owing to the pressure on them from North Wales and
Mercia, commended themselves to Alfred. Later in his reign the North Welsh followed their example and the
latter cooperated with the English in the campaign of 893 (or 894). That Alfred sent alms to Irish and
Continental monasteries may be taken on Asser's authority. The visit of the three pilgrim "Scots" (i.e. Irish) to
Alfred in 891 is undoubtedly authentic. The story that he himself in his childhood was sent to Ireland to be
healed by Saint Modwenna, though mythical, may show Alfred's interest in that island.[43]
Religion and culture
In the 880s, at the same time that he was "cajoling and threatening" his nobles to build and man the burhs,
Alfred, perhaps inspired by the example of Charlemagne almost a century before, undertook an equally
ambitious effort to revive learning.[43] During this time period the Viking raids were often seen as a divine
punishment and Alfred may have wished to revive religious awe in order to appease God's wrath.[91] This
revival entailed the recruitment of clerical scholars from Mercia, Wales and abroad to enhance the tenor of the
court and of the episcopacy; the establishment of a court school to educate his own children, the sons of his
nobles, and intellectually promising boys of lesser birth; an attempt to require literacy in those who held offices
of authority; a series of translations into the vernacular of Latin works the king deemed "most necessary for all
men to know";[92] the compilation of a chronicle detailing the rise of Alfred's kingdom and house, with a
genealogy that stretched back to Adam, thus giving the West Saxon kings a biblical ancestry.[93]
King Alfred the Great pictured in a
stained glass window in the West
Window of the South Transept of
Bristol Cathedral.
Very little is known of the church under Alfred. The Danish attacks had
been particularly damaging to the monasteries. Although Alfred
founded monasteries at Athelney and Shaftesbury, these were the first
new monastic houses in Wessex since the beginning of the eighth
century.[94] According to Asser, Alfred enticed foreign monks to
England for his monastery at Athelney as there was little interest for the
locals to take up the monastic life.[95]
Alfred undertook no systematic reform of ecclesiastical institutions or
religious practices in Wessex. For him the key to the kingdom's spiritual
revival was to appoint pious, learned, and trustworthy bishops and
abbots. As king he saw himself as responsible for both the temporal and
spiritual welfare of his subjects. Secular and spiritual authority were not
distinct categories for Alfred.[96][97]
He was equally comfortable distributing his translation of Gregory the
Great's Pastoral Care to his bishops so that they might better train and
supervise priests and using those same bishops as royal officials and
judges. Nor did his piety prevent him from expropriating strategically
sited church lands, especially estates along the border with the Danelaw,
and transferring them to royal thegns and officials who could better
defend them against Viking attacks.[97][98]
Impact of Danish raids on education
The Danish raids had a devastating effect on learning in England. Alfred lamented in the preface to his
translation of Gregory's Pastoral Care that "learning had declined so thoroughly in England that there were
very few men on this side of the Humber who could understand their divine services in English or even
translate a single letter from Latin into English: and I suppose that there were not many beyond the Humber
either".[99] Alfred undoubtedly exaggerated, for dramatic effect, the abysmal state of learning in England
during his youth.[100] That Latin learning had not been obliterated is evidenced by the presence in his court of
learned Mercian and West Saxon clerics such as Plegmund, Wæferth, and Wulfsige.[101]
Manuscript production in England dropped off precipitously around the 860s when the Viking invasions began
in earnest, not to be revived until the end of the century.[102] Numerous Anglo-Saxon manuscripts burnt up
along with the churches that housed them. And a solemn diploma from Christ Church, Canterbury, dated 873,
is so poorly constructed and written that historian Nicholas Brooks posited a scribe who was either so blind he
could not read what he wrote or who knew little or no Latin. "It is clear", Brooks concludes, "that the
metropolitan church [of Canterbury] must have been quite unable to provide any effective training in the
scriptures or in Christian worship".[103]
Establishment of a court school
Following the example of Charlemagne Alfred established a court school for the education of his own children,
those of the nobility, and "a good many of lesser birth".[92] There they studied books in both English and Latin
and "devoted themselves to writing, to such an extent ... they were seen to be devoted and intelligent students of
the liberal arts".[104] He recruited scholars from the Continent and from Britain to aid in the revival of Christian
learning in Wessex and to provide the king personal instruction. Grimbald and John the Saxon came from
Francia; Plegmund (whom Alfred appointed archbishop of Canterbury in 890), Bishop Werferth of Worcester,
Æthelstan, and the royal chaplains Werwulf, from Mercia; and Asser, from St David's in southwestern
Wales.[105]
Advocacy of education in the English language
Alfred's educational ambitions seem to have extended beyond the establishment of a court school. Believing
that without Christian wisdom there can be neither prosperity nor success in war, Alfred aimed "to set to
learning (as long as they are not useful for some other employment) all the free-born young men now in
England who have the means to apply themselves to it".[106] Conscious of the decay of Latin literacy in his
realm Alfred proposed that primary education be taught in English, with those wishing to advance to holy
orders to continue their studies in Latin.[107]
There were few "books of wisdom" written in English. Alfred sought to remedy this through an ambitious
court-centred programme of translating into English the books he deemed "most necessary for all men to
know".[107] It is unknown when Alfred launched this programme but it may have been during the 880s when
Wessex was enjoying a respite from Viking attacks. Alfred was, until recently, often considered to have been
the author of many of the translations but this is now considered doubtful in almost all cases. Scholars more
often refer to translations as "Alfredian" indicating that they probably had something to do with his patronage
but are unlikely to be his own work.[108]
Apart from the lost Handboc or Encheiridio, which seems to have been a commonplace book kept by the king,
the earliest work to be translated was the Dialogues of Gregory the Great, a book greatly popular in the Middle
Ages. The translation was undertaken at Alfred's command by Werferth, Bishop of Worcester, with the king
merely furnishing a preface.[43] Remarkably Alfred, undoubtedly with the advice and aid of his court scholars,
translated four works himself: Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care, Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy", St.
Augustine's Soliloquies and the first fifty psalms of the Psalter.[109]
One might add to this list the translation, in Alfred's law code, of excerpts from the Vulgate Book of Exodus.
The Old English versions of Orosius's Histories against the Pagans and Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the
English People are no longer accepted by scholars as Alfred's own translations because of lexical and stylistic
differences.[109] Nonetheless the consensus remains that they were part of the Alfredian programme of
translation. Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge suggest this also for Bald's Leechbook and the anonymous Old
English Martyrology.[110]
The preface of Alfred's translation of Pope Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care explained why he thought it
necessary to translate works such as this from Latin into English. Although he described his method as
translating "sometimes word for word, sometimes sense for sense", the translation actually keeps very close to
the original although, through his choice of language, he blurred throughout the distinction between spiritual
and secular authority. Alfred meant the translation to be used, and circulated it to all his bishops.[111] Interest in
Alfred's translation of Pastoral Care was so enduring that copies were still being made in the 11th century.[112]
Boethius'Consolation of Philosophy was the most popular philosophical handbook of the Middle Ages. Unlike
the translation of the Pastoral Care the Alfredian text deals very freely with the original and, though the late
Dr. G. Schepss showed that many of the additions to the text are to be traced not to the translator himself[113]
but to the glosses and commentaries which he used, still there is much in the work which is distinctive to the
translation and has been taken to reflect philosophies of kingship in Alfred's milieu. It is in the Boethius that the
oft-quoted sentence occurs: "To speak briefly: I desired to live worthily as long as I lived, and after my life to
leave to them that should come after, my memory in good works."[114] The book has come down to us in two
manuscripts only. In one of these[115] the writing is prose, in the other[116] a combination of prose and
alliterating verse. The latter manuscript was severely damaged in the 18th and 19th centuries.[117]
The last of the Alfredian works is one which bears the name Blostman, i.e. "Blooms" or Anthology. The first
half is based mainly on the Soliloquies of St Augustine of Hippo, the remainder is drawn from various sources.
The material has traditionally been thought to contain much that is Alfred's own and highly characteristic of
him. The last words of it may be quoted; they form a fitting epitaph for the noblest of English kings.
2A drawing of the Alfred Jewel.
The Alfred Jewel, in the Ashmolean
Museum, Oxford, commissioned by
Alfred.
"Therefore, he seems to me a very foolish man, and truly wretched, who will not increase his understanding
while he is in the world, and ever wish and long to reach that endless life where all shall be made clear."[111]
Alfred appears as a character in the twelfth- or thirteenth-century poem The Owl and the Nightingale where his
wisdom and skill with proverbs is praised. The Proverbs of Alfred, a thirteenth-century work, contains sayings
that are not likely to have originated with Alfred but attest to his posthumous medieval reputation for
wisdom.[118]
The Alfred jewel, discovered in Somerset in 1693, has long been
associated with King Alfred because of its Old English inscription
AELFRED MEC HEHT GEWYRCAN (Alfred ordered me to be
made). The jewel is about 21⁄2 inches (6.4 centimetres) long, made of
filigreed gold, enclosing a highly polished piece of quartz crystal
beneath which is set in a cloisonné enamel plaque with an enamelled
image of a man holding floriate sceptres, perhaps personifying Sight or
the Wisdom of God.[119]
It was at one time attached to a thin rod or stick based on the hollow
socket at its base. The jewel certainly dates from Alfred's reign.
Although its function is unknown it has been often suggested that the
jewel was one of the "æstels"—pointers for reading—that Alfred
ordered sent to every bishopric accompanying a copy of his translation
of the Pastoral Care. Each "æstel" was worth the princely sum of 50
mancuses which fits in well with the quality workmanship and
expensive materials of the Alfred jewel".[120]
Historian Richard Abels sees Alfred's educational and military reforms
as complementary. Restoring religion and learning in Wessex, Abels
contends, was to Alfred's mind as essential to the defence of his realm
as the building of the burhs.[121] As Alfred observed in the preface to
his English translation of Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care, kings who
fail to obey their divine duty to promote learning can expect earthly
punishments to befall their people.[122] The pursuit of wisdom, he
assured his readers of the Boethius, was the surest path to power:
"Study Wisdom, then, and, when you have learned it, condemn it not,
for I tell you that by its means you may without fail attain to power, yea,
even though not desiring it".[123]
The portrayal of the West-Saxon resistance to the Vikings by Asser and
the chronicler as a Christian holy war was more than mere rhetoric or
'propaganda'. It reflected Alfred's own belief in a doctrine of divine
rewards and punishments rooted in a vision of a hierarchical Christian
world order in which God is the Lord to whom kings owe obedience
and through whom they derive their authority over their followers. The
need to persuade his nobles to undertake work for the 'common good'
led Alfred and his court scholars to strengthen and deepen the
conception of Christian kingship that he had inherited by building upon
the legacy of earlier kings such as Offa as well as clerical writers such
as Bede, Alcuin and the other luminaries of the Carolingian renaissance.
This was not a cynical use of religion to manipulate his subjects into
obedience but an intrinsic element in Alfred's worldview. He believed,
as did other kings in ninth-century England and Francia, that God had
entrusted him with the spiritual as well as physical welfare of his
people. If the Christian faith fell into ruin in his kingdom, if the clergy were too ignorant to understand the
Latin words they butchered in their offices and liturgies, if the ancient monasteries and collegiate churches lay
deserted out of indifference, he was answerable before God, as Josiah had been. Alfred's ultimate responsibility
was the pastoral care of his people.[121]
Appearance and character
Asser wrote of Alfred in his Life of King Alfred:
Now, he was greatly loved, more than all his brothers, by his father and mother—indeed, by
everybody—with a universal and profound love, and he was always brought up in the royal court
and nowhere else. ... [He] was seen to be more comely in appearance than his other brothers, and
more pleasing in manner, speech and behaviour ... [and] in spite of all the demands of the present
life, it has been the desire for wisdom, more than anything else, together with the nobility of his
birth, which have characterized the nature of his noble mind.[124]
It is also written by Asser that Alfred did not learn to read until he was twelve years old or later, which is
described as "shameful negligence" of his parents and tutors. Alfred was an excellent listener and had an
incredible memory and he retained poetry and psalms very well. A story is told by Asser about how his mother
held up a book of Saxon poetry to him and his brothers, and said; "I shall give this book to whichever one of
you can learn it the fastest." After excitedly asking, "Will you really give this book to the one of us who can
understand it the soonest and recite it to you?" Alfred then took it to his teacher, learned it, and recited it back
to his mother.[125]
Alfred is also noted as carrying around a small book, probably a medieval version of a small pocket notebook,
which contained psalms and many prayers that he often collected. Asser writes: these "he collected in a single
book, as I have seen for myself; amid all the affairs of the present life he took it around with him everywhere
for the sake of prayer, and was inseparable from it."[125]
An excellent hunter in every branch of the sport, Alfred is remembered as an enthusiastic huntsman against
whom nobody’s skills could compare.[125]
Although he was the youngest of his brothers, he was probably the most open-minded. He was an early
advocate for education. His desire for learning could have come from his early love of English poetry and
inability to read or physically record it until later in life. Asser writes that Alfred "could not satisfy his craving
for what he desired the most, namely the liberal arts; for, as he used to say, there were no good scholars in the
entire kingdom of the West Saxons at that time".[125]
Family
In 868 Alfred married Ealhswith, daughter of a Mercian nobleman, Æthelred Mucel, Ealdorman of the Gaini.
The Gaini were probably one of the tribal groups of the Mercians. Ealhswith's mother, Eadburh, was a member
of the Mercian royal family.[126]
They had five or six children together including: Edward the Elder who succeeded his father as king; Æthelflæd
who became Lady (ruler) of the Mercians in her own right; and Ælfthryth who married Baldwin II the Count of
Flanders. His mother was Osburga, daughter of Oslac of the Isle of Wight, Chief Butler of England. Asser, in
his Vita Ælfredi asserts that this shows his lineage from the Jutes of the Isle of Wight. This is unlikely as Bede
tells us that they were all slaughtered by the Saxons under Cædwalla. In 2008 the skeleton of Queen Eadgyth,
granddaughter of Alfred the Great was found in Magdeburg Cathedral in Germany. It was confirmed in 2010
that these remains belong to her—one of the earliest members of the English royal family.[127]
Osferth was described as a relative in King Alfred's will and he attested charters in a high position until 934. A
charter of King Edward's reign described him as the king's brother, "mistakenly" according to Keynes and
Lapidge, but in the view of Janet Nelson he probably was an illegitimate son of King Alfred.[128][129]
Name Birth Death Notes
Æthelflæd 12 June 918 Married c 886, Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians d. 911; had
issue
Edward c. 874 17 July 924 Married (1) Ecgwynn, (2) Ælfflæd, (3) 919 Eadgifu
Æthelgifu Abbess of Shaftesbury
Æthelweard 16 October
922(?) Married and had issue
Ælfthryth 929 Married Baldwin II d. 918; had issue
Ancestry
Ancestors of Alfred the Great
8. Ealhmund of Kent
4. Egbert of Wessex
2. Æthelwulf of Wessex
1. Alfred the Great
6. Oslac
3. Osburga
Source: Abels. Alfred the Great: War, Kingship and Culture in Anglo-Saxon England.[130]
Death, burial and fate of remains
Alfred died on 26 October 899. How he died is unknown, although he suffered throughout his life with a
painful and unpleasant illness. His biographer Asser gave a detailed description of Alfred's symptoms and this
has allowed modern doctors to provide a possible diagnosis. It is thought that he had either Crohn's disease or
haemorrhoidal disease.[7][131] His grandson King Eadred seems to have suffered from a similar illness.[132][g]
Alfred was originally buried temporarily in the Old Minster in Winchester. Four years after his death he was
moved to the New Minster (perhaps built especially to receive his body). When the New Minster moved to
Hyde, a little north of the city, in 1110, the monks were transferred to Hyde Abbey along with Alfred's body
and those of his wife and children, which were presumably interred before the high altar. Soon after the
dissolution of the abbey in 1539, during the reign of Henry VIII, the church was demolished, leaving the graves
intact.[134]
Alfred's will
Statue of Alfred the Great at
Wantage, Oxfordshire
The royal graves and many others were probably rediscovered by chance in
1788 when a prison was being constructed by convicts on the site. Prisoners dug
across the width of the altar area in order to dispose of rubble left at the
dissolution. Coffins were stripped of lead, and bones were scattered and lost.
The prison was demolished between 1846 and 1850.[135] Further excavations in
1866 and 1897 were inconclusive.[134][136] In 1866 amateur antiquarian John
Mellor claimed to have recovered a number of bones from the site which he
said were those of Alfred. These later came into the possession of the vicar of
nearby St Bartholomew's Church who reburied them in an unmarked grave in
the church graveyard.[135]
Excavations conducted by the Winchester Museums Service of the Hyde Abbey
site in 1999 located a second pit dug in front of where the high altar would have
been located, which was identified as probably dating to Mellor's 1886
excavation.[134] The 1999 archeological excavation uncovered the foundations
of the abbey buildings and some bones. Bones suggested at the time to be those
of Alfred proved instead to belong to an elderly woman.[137]
In March 2013 the Diocese of Winchester exhumed the bones from the
unmarked grave at St Bartholomew's and placed them in secure storage. The diocese made no claim they were
the bones of Alfred, but intended to secure them for later analysis, and from the attentions of people whose
interest may have been sparked by the recent identification of the remains of King Richard III.[137][138] The
bones were radiocarbon-dated but the results showed that they were from the 1300s and therefore unrelated to
Alfred. In January 2014, a fragment of pelvis unearthed in the 1999 excavation of the Hyde site, which had
subsequently lain in a Winchester museum store room, was radiocarbon-dated to the correct period. It has been
suggested that this bone may belong to either Alfred or his son Edward, but this remains unproven.[139][140]
Legacy
Alfred is venerated as a saint by some Christian traditions, but an attempt by
Henry VI of England in 1441 to have him canonized by the pope was
unsuccessful.[141][h] The Anglican Communion venerates him as a Christian
hero, with a feast day or commemoration on 26 October, and he may often be
found depicted in stained glass in Church of England parish churches.[142]
Alfred commissioned Bishop Asser to write his biography, which inevitably
emphasised Alfred's positive aspects. Later medieval historians, such as
Geoffrey of Monmouth, also reinforced Alfred's favourable image. By the time
of the Reformation Alfred was seen as being a pious Christian ruler who
promoted the use of English rather than Latin, and so the translations that he
commissioned were viewed as untainted by the later Roman Catholic influences
of the Normans. Consequently it was writers of the sixteenth century who gave
Alfred his epithet as 'the Great' rather than any of Alfred's contemporaries.[143]
The epithet was retained by succeeding generations of Parliamentarians and
empire-builders who saw Alfred's patriotism, success against barbarism,
promotion of education and establishment of the rule of law as supporting their
own ideals.[143]
A number of educational establishments are named in Alfred's honour. These include:
The University of Winchester created from the former 'King Alfred's College, Winchester' (1928 to
2004).
Alfred University and Alfred State College in Alfred, New York. The local telephone exchange for
Alfred University is 871 in commemoration of Alfred's ascension to the throne.
In honour of Alfred, the University of Liverpool created a King Alfred Chair of English Literature.
King Alfred's Academy, a secondary school in Wantage, Oxfordshire, the birthplace of Alfred.
King's Lodge School in Chippenham, Wiltshire is so named because King Alfred's hunting lodge is
reputed to have stood on or near the site of the school.
The King Alfred School & Specialist Sports Academy, Burnham Road, Highbridge is so named due to its
rough proximity to Brent Knoll (a Beacon site) and Athelney.
The King Alfred School in Barnet, North London, UK.
King Alfred's Middle School, Shaftesbury, Dorset [Now defunct after reorganisation]
King's College, Taunton, Somerset. (The king in question is King Alfred).
King Alfred's house in Bishop Stopford's School at Enfield.
Saxonwold Primary School in Gauteng, South Africa names one of its houses after King Alfred. The
others being Bede, Caedmon, and Dunston.
The Royal Navy has named one ship and two shore establishments HMS King Alfred, and one of the first ships
of the US Navy was named USS Alfred in his honour. In 2002, Alfred was ranked number 14 in the BBC's list
of the 100 Greatest Britons following a UK-wide vote.[144]
Statues
Pewsey
A prominent statue of King Alfred the Great stands in the middle of Pewsey. It was unveiled in June 1913 to
commemorate the coronation of King George V.[145]
Wantage
A statue of Alfred the Great, situated in the Wantage market place, was sculpted by Count Gleichen, a relative
of Queen Victoria, and unveiled on 14 July 1877 by the Prince and Princess of Wales.[146] The statue was
vandalised on New Year's Eve 2007, losing part of its right arm and axe. After the arm and axe were replaced
the statue was again vandalised on Christmas Eve 2008, losing its axe.[146]
Winchester
A bronze statue of Alfred the Great stands at the eastern end of The Broadway, close to the site of Winchester's
medieval East Gate. The statue was designed by Hamo Thornycroft, and erected in 1899 to mark one thousand
years since Alfred's death.[147][148] The statue is placed on a pedestal consisting of two immense blocks of gray
Cornish granite.[149]
See also
Cultural depictions of Alfred the Great
Notes
a. Pronounced [ælfreːd]
b. Pronounced [ælfræːd]
c. Alfred was the youngest of either four (Weir, Alison, Britain's Royal Families: The Complete Genealog y(1989), p.5) or
five brothers,[2] the primary record conflicting regarding whetherÆ thelstan of Wessex was a brother or uncle.
d. The inscription reads "ALFRED THE GREAT AD 879 on this Summit Erected his Standard Against Danish Invaders
To him We owe The Origin of Juries The Establishment of a Militia The Creation of a Naval Force ALFRED The Light
of a Benighted Age Was a Philosopher and a Christian The Father of his People The Founder of the English
MONARCHY and LIBERTY" (Horspool 2006, pp. 173)
e. A "Chrisom" was the face-cloth or piece of linen laid over a child's head when he or she wabsa ptised or christened.
Originally the purpose of the chrisom-cloth was to keep the "chrism", a consecrated oil, from accidentally rubbing
off.[20]
f. Some versions of the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" reported that Alfred sent a delegation to India, although this could just
mean Asia as other versions say "Iudea".A( bels 1998, pp. 190–192)
g. According to St Dunstan's apprentice "...poor King Eadred would suck the juice out of the food, chew what remained for
a little while and spit it out: a nasty practice that often turned the stomachs of the thegns who dined with him[1.3"3]
h. Some Eastern Orthodox Christians believe that Alfred should be recognised as a saint. SeCe ase for (http://www.orthodo
xengland.org.uk/athlifea.htm) and Case against (http://sarisburium.blogspot.com/2008/1/king-alfred-of-england-orthod
ox-saint.html)
Citations
1. Yorke 2001, pp. 27–28.
2. Crown staff 2011.
3. Giles & Ingram 1996, Year 853.
4. Wormald 2006.
5. Crofton 2006, p. 8.
6. Asser & 866, paragraph 23.
7. Craig 1991, p. 303–305.
8. Cornwell 2009, "Historical Note" (p. 385 and following).
9. Keynes & Lapidge 1983, pp. 16–17.
10. Giles & Ingram 1996, Year 868.
11. Plummer 1911, p. 582.
12. Abels 1998, pp. 140–141.
13. Brooks & Graham-Campbell 1986, pp. 91–110.
14. Giles & Ingram 1996, Year 876.
15. Arnold 2011, p. 37.
16. Giles & Ingram 1996, Year 877.
17. Giles & Ingram 1996, Year 878.
18. Savage 1988, p. 101.
19. Lavelle 2010, pp. 187–191.
20. Nares 1859, p. 160.
21. Keynes & Lapidge 1983, Ch. 60.
22. Horspool 2006, pp. 123–124.
23. Abels 1998, p. 163.
24. Attenborough 1922, pp. 98–101, Treaty of Alfred and Gunthrum (https://archive.org/stream/lawsofearliesten00grea#pag
e/98/mode/2up).
25. Blackburn 1998, pp. 105–24.
26. Pratt 2007, p. 94.
27. Keynes & Lapidge 1983, p. 86.
28. Keynes & Lapidge 1983, pp. 250–251.
29. Alfred 1969, p. 76.
30. Asser 1969, p. 78.
31. Keynes & Lapidge 1983, p. 88.
32. Keynes & Lapidge 1983, p. 87.
33. Huntingdon 1969, p. 81.
34. Woodruff 1993, p. 86.
35. Keynes 1998, p. 24.
36. Keynes 1998, p. 23.
37. Pratt 2007, p. 106.
38. Asser 1969, p. 114.
39. Woodruff 1993, p. 89.
40. "A History of King Alfred The Great and the Danes "(http://www.localhistories.org/alfred.html). Local Histories.
Retrieved 5 September 2016.
41. Merkle 2009, p. 220.
42. Keynes & Lapidge 1983, pp. 115–6, 286.
43. Plummer 1911, p. 583.
44. Preston, Wise & Werner 1956, p. 70.
45. Hollister 1962, pp. 59–60.
46. Attenborough 1922, pp. 52–53.
47. Abels 1998, pp. 194–195.
48. Abels 1998, pp. 139, 152.
49. Cannon 1997, p. 398.
50. Abels 1998, p. 194.
51. Keynes & Lapidge 1983, p. 14.
52. Lavelle 2010, p. 212
53. Lavelle 2010, pp. 70–73.
54. Lapidge 2001.
55. Pratt 2007, p. 95.
56. Hull 2006, p. xx.
57. Abels 1998, p. 203.
58. Welch 1992, p. 127.
59. Abels 1998, p. 304.
60. Bradshaw 1999, which is referenced in Hull 2006, p. xx
61. Hill & Rumble 1996, p. 5.
62. Abels 1998, pp. 204–7.
63. Abels 1998, pp. 198–202.
64. Lavelle 2003, p. 26.
65. Abels 1988, pp. 204, 304.
66. Abels 1998, pp. 287,304.
67. Asser, translated by Keynes & Lapidge 1983
68. Abels 1998, p. 206.
69. Savage 1988, p. 111.
70. Savage 1988, pp. 86–88.
71. Savage 1988, p. 97.
72. Abels 1998, pp. 305–307 Cf. the much more positive view of the capabilities of these ships iGn ifford & Gifford 2003,
pp. 281–289
73. Abels 1998, pp. 305–307.
74. Lavelle 2010, pp. 286–297.
75. Giles & Ingram 1996, Year 896.
76. Attenborough 1922, pp. 62–93.
77. "Alfred" Int. 49.9, trans. Keynes & Lapidge 1983, p. 164.
78. Wormald 2001, pp. 280–281.
79. Pratt 2007, p. 215.
80. Abels 1998, p. 248.
81. Wormald 2001, p. 417.
82. "Alfred" Intro, 49.7, trans. Keynes & Lapidge 1983, pp. 164–165
83. Abels 1998, p. 250 cites "Alfred's Pastoral Care" ch. 28
84. Wormald 2001, p. 427.
85. "Alfred" 2, in Keynes & Lapidge 1983, p. 164.
86. Asser chap. 106, in Keynes & Lapidge 1983, p. 109
87. The charter is Sawyer 1445 and is printed inW hitelock 1996, pp. 544–546.
88. Asser, chap. 106, in Keynes & Lapidge 1983, pp. 109–10.
89. Parker 2007, pp. 48–50.
90. Orosius & Hampson 1855, p. 16.
91. Studies in the Early History of Shaftesbury Abbe.y "King Alfred the Great and ShaftesburyA bbey"- Simon Keynes.
Dorset County Council 1999
92. Keynes & Lapidge 1983, pp. 28–29.
93. Gransden 1996, pp. 34–35.
94. Yorke 1995, p. 201.
95. Keynes & Lapidge 1983, pp. 101–102.
96. Ranft 2012, pp. 78–79.
97. Sweet 1871, pp. 1–9.
98. Fleming 1985.
99. Keynes & Lapidge 1983, p. 125.
100. Abels 1998, p. 55.
101. Abels 1998, pp. 265–268.
102. Dumville 1992, p. 190.
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Winchester City Museum". The Independent.
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Literature's article about
Ælfred.
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Attribution:
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Plummer, Charles (1911).
"Alfred the Great". In Chisholm, Hugh. Encyclopædia Britannica. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University
Press. pp. 582–584.
Further reading
Discenza, Nicole Guenther; Szarmach, Paul E., eds. (2015). A
Companion to Alfred the Great. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill.
ISBN 978-90-04-27484-6.
Frantzen, Allen J. King Alfred the Great. Twayne's English
Authors Series. ISBN 978-0805769180.
Fry, Fred (2006). Patterns of Power: The Military Campaigns of
Alfred the Great. ISBN 978-1-905226-93-1.
Giles, J. A., ed. (1858). The Whole Works of King Alfred the Great
(Jubileein 3 vols ed.). Oxford and Cambridge.
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Schuman Publishers, Inc. ISBN 978-1-55570-045-4.
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Englishman: Gender, War, and the Alfred the Great Commemoration of 1901". Canadian Journal of
History: 459–84.
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History of English. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-954439-4.
Pollard, Justin (2006). Alfred the Great: the man who made England. ISBN 0-7195-6666-5.
Reuter, Timothy, ed. (2003). Alfred the Great. Studies in early medieval Britain. ISBN 978-0-7546-0957-
5.
The whole works of King Alfred the Great, with preliminary essays, illustrative of the history, arts, and
manners, of the ninth century. 1969. OCLC 28387.
External links
Alfred 8 at Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England
Works by or about Alfred the Great at Internet Archive
Works by Alfred the Great at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
BBC article on Alfred
The full text of Lays of Boethius at Wikisource
Orosius (c. 417). Alfred the Great; Barrington, Daines, eds. The Anglo-Saxon Version, from the Historian
Orosius. London: Printed by W. Bowyer and J. Nichols and sold by S. Baker (published 1773).
Alfred the Great
House of Wessex
Born: 849 Died: 26 October 899
Regnal titles
Preceded by
Æthelred
Bretwalda
871–899 Last holder
King of Wessex
871–899
Succeeded by
Edward the Elder
New title
King of the Anglo-
Saxons
878–899
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alfred_the_Great&oldid=786406714"
Categories: Alfred the Great 849 births 899 deaths 9th-century English monarchs 9th-century Christians
Christian monarchs English Christians Medieval legislators Patrons of literature People from Wantage
West Saxon monarchs House of Wessex
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Alfred married of Mercia, Queen Eathswith in 868 in Kingdom of Wessex (England). Eathswith (daughter of of Mercia, Earl Æthelred and of Mercia, Eadburh) was born in 852 in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, England; died on 5 Dec 902 in St Mary's Abbey, Winchester, Hampshire, England; was buried in 1110 in Hyde Abbey (now lost), Winchester, Hampshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• House: Gaini tribe of Mercia
• FSID: L83F-5Z6
• Religion: Catholic - Saint Elswith
• Appointments / Titles: Between 23 Apr 871 and 26 Oct 899, Kingdom of Wessex (England); Queen Consort of Wessex

Notes:

Ealhswith

Queen consort of Wessex

Reign 23 April 871 – 26 October 899
Died 902
Burial New Minster, Winchester
Spouse Alfred, King of Wessex
Issue
Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians
Edward, King of England
Æthelgifu
Æthelweard of Wessex
Ælfthryth, Countess of Flanders
Father Æthelred Mucel
Mother Eadburh

Ealhswith
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ealhswith or Ealswitha (died 5 December 902) was the wife of King Alfred the Great. Her father was a Mercian nobleman, Æthelred Mucel, Ealdorman of the Gaini, which is thought to be an old Mercian tribal group. Her mother was Eadburh, a member of the Mercian royal family, and according to the historian Cyril Hart she was a descendant of King Coenwulf of Mercia.[1]

Life
She was married to Alfred in 868. His elder brother Æthelred was then king, and Alfred was regarded as heir apparent.[2][3] The Danes occupied the Mercian town of Nottingham in that year, and the marriage was probably connected with an alliance between Wessex and Mercia.[4] Alfred became king on his brother's death in 871. Ealhswith is very obscure in contemporary sources. She did not witness any known charters, and Asser did not even mention her name in his life of King Alfred. In accordance with ninth century West Saxon custom, she was not given the title of queen. According to King Alfred, this was because of the infamous conduct of a former queen of Wessex called Eadburh, who had accidentally poisoned her husband.[5]

Alfred left his wife three important symbolic estates in his will, Edington in Wiltshire, the site of one important victory over the Vikings, Lambourn in Berkshire, which was near another, and Wantage, his birthplace. These were all part of his bookland, and they stayed in royal possession after her death.[3] It was probably after Alfred's death in 899 that Ealhswith founded the convent of St Mary's Abbey, Winchester, known as the Nunnaminster. She died on 5 December 902, and was buried in her son Edward's new Benedictine abbey, the New Minster, Winchester. She is commemorated in two early tenth century manuscripts as "the true and dear lady of the English".[3]

Ealhswith had a brother called Æthelwulf,[3] who was ealdorman of western and possibly central Mercia under his niece's husband, Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians, in the 890s.[6] He died in 901.[7]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ealhswith.

Children
Alfred and Ealhswith had five children who survived to adulthood.[3]
Æthelflæd (d. 918), Lady of the Mercians, married Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians
Edward the Elder (d. 924), King of the Anglo-Saxons
Æthelgifu, made abbess of her foundation at Shaftesbury by her father
Ælfthryth, Countess of Flanders (d. 929), married Baldwin II, Count of Flanders
Æthelweard (d. c.920)

References
1. Keynes & Lapidge, Asser, pp. 77; 240-41; Hart, Æthelstan, p. 116 n.
2. Keynes & Lapidge, Asser, p. 77
3. Costambeys, Ealhswith
4. Williams, Ealhswith
5. Keynes & Lapidge Asser, pp. 71-72, 235-236
6. Hart, Æthelstan, p. 116
7. PASE, Æthelwulf 21 (http://pase.ac.uk/jsp/pdb?dosp=PAGE_CHANGE&N=1)

Sources
Costambeys, Marios (2004). "Ealhswith (d. 902), consort of Alfred, king of the West Saxons". Oxford
Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/39226. Retrieved
25 October 2012. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
Hart, Cyril (1973). "Athelstan 'Half King' and his family". Anglo-Saxon England. Cambridge University
Press. 2: 115–144. ISBN 0 521 20218 3. doi:10.1017/s0263675100000375.
Keynes, Simon; Lapidge, Michael, eds. (1983). Alfred the Great: Asser's Life of King Alfred & Other
Contemporary Sources. Penguin Classics. ISBN 978-0-14-04440-94.
Williams, Ann (1991). "Ealhswith wife of King Alfred d. 902". In Ann Williams, Alfred P. Smyth and D.
P. Kirby eds. A Biographical Dictionary of Dark Age Britain. Seaby. ISBN 1 85264 0472.
External links
Ealhswith 1 at Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England
Ealhswith at Find a Grave
St. Mary's Abbey
Preceded by
Wulfthryth?
Consort of the King of Wessex
871–899
Succeeded by
Ecgwynn or Ælfflæd
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ealhswith&oldid=784388793"
Categories: 9th-century English people 10th-century English people 9th-century women
10th-century women Anglo-Saxon royal consorts English Roman Catholic religious sisters and nuns
902 deaths Alfred the Great House of Wessex
This page was last edited on 8 June 2017, at 01:46.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may
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trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.

In accordance with ninth century West Saxon custom, she was not given the title of queen, and did not witness any known charters.

Buried:
Originally buried next to her husband and children at New Minster in 905, the whole family was moved to Hyde Abbey in 1110, where they were interred before the high altar.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Appointments / Titles: Between 839 and 858; King of Wessex

Notes:

Æthelwulf

King of Wessex
Reign 839–858
Predecessor Egbert
Successor Æthelbald
Died 13 January 858
Burial Steyning then Old Minster, Winchester; remains may now be in Winchester Cathedral[1]
Spouse Osburh
Judith
Issue
Æthelstan, King of Kent
Æthelswith, Queen of Mercia
Æthelbald, King of Wessex
Æthelberht, King of Wessex
Æthelred, King of Wessex
Alfred, King of Wessex
House House of Wessex
Father Egbert

Æthelwulf
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Æthelwulf (Old English for "Noble Wolf";[2] died 13 January 858) was King of Wessex from 839 to 858.[a] In 825, his father, King Egbert, defeated King Beornwulf of Mercia, ending a long Mercian dominance over Anglo-Saxon England south of the Humber. Egbert sent Æthelwulf with an army to Kent, where he expelled the Mercian sub-king and was himself appointed sub-king. After 830, Egbert maintained good relations with Mercia, and this was continued by Æthelwulf when he became king in 839, the first son to succeed his father as West Saxon king since 641. The Vikings were not a major threat to Wessex during Æthelwulf's reign. In 843, he was defeated in a battle against the Vikings at Carhampton in Somerset, but he achieved a major victory at the Battle of Aclea in 851. In 853 he joined a successful Mercian expedition to Wales to restore the traditional Mercian hegemony, and in the same year his daughter Æthelswith married King Burgred of Mercia. In 855 Æthelwulf went on pilgrimage to Rome. In preparation he gave a "decimation", donating a tenth of his personal property to his subjects; he appointed his eldest surviving son Æthelbald to act as King of Wessex in his absence, and his next son Æthelberht to rule Kent and the south-east. Æthelwulf spent a year in Rome, and on his way back he married Judith, the daughter of the West Frankish King Charles the Bald.

When Æthelwulf returned to England, Æthelbald refused to surrender the West Saxon throne, and Æthelwulf agreed to divide the kingdom, taking the east and leaving the west in Æthelbald's hands. On Æthelwulf's death in 858 he left Wessex to Æthelbald and Kent to Æthelberht, but Æthelbald's death only two years later led to the reunification of the kingdom.

In the 20th century Æthelwulf's reputation among historians was poor: he was seen as excessively pious and impractical, and his pilgrimage was viewed as a desertion of his duties. Historians in the 21st century see him very differently, as a king who consolidated and extended the power of his dynasty, commanded respect on the continent, and dealt more effectively than most of his contemporaries with Viking attacks. He is regarded as one of the most successful West Saxon kings, who laid the foundations for the success of his son, Alfred the Great.

Background
At the beginning of the 9th century, England was almost completely under the control of the Anglo-Saxons, with Mercia and Wessex the most important southern kingdoms. Mercia was dominant until the 820s, and it exercised overlordship over East Anglia and Kent, but Wessex was able to maintain its independence from its more powerful neighbour. Offa, King of Mercia from 757 to 796, was the dominant figure of the second half of the 8th century. King Beorhtric of Wessex (786–802), married Offa's daughter in 789. Beorhtric and Offa drove Æthelwulf's father Egbert into exile, and he spent several years at the court of Charlemagne in Francia. Egbert was the son of Ealhmund, who had briefly been King of Kent in 784. Following Offa's death, King Coenwulf of Mercia (796–821) maintained Mercian dominance, but it is uncertain whether Beorhtric ever accepted political subordination, and when he died in 802 Egbert became king, perhaps with the support of Charlemagne.[5] For two hundred years three kindreds had fought for the West Saxon throne, and no son had followed his father as king. Egbert's best claim was that he was the great-great-grandson of Ingild, brother of King Ine (688–726), and in 802 it would have seemed very unlikely that he would establish a lasting dynasty.[6] Almost nothing is recorded of the first twenty years of Egbert's reign, apart from campaigns against the Cornish in the 810s.[7] The historian Richard Abels argues that the silence of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was probably intentional, concealing Egbert's purge of Beorhtric's magnates and suppression of rival royal lines.[8] Relations between Mercian kings and their Kentish subjects were distant. Kentish ealdormen did not attend the court of King Coenwulf, who quarrelled with Archbishop Wulfred of Canterbury (805–832) over the control of Kentish monasteries; Coenwulf's primary concern seems to have been to gain access to the wealth of Kent. His successors Ceolwulf I (821–23) and Beornwulf (823–26) restored relations with Archbishop Wulfred, and Beornwulf appointed a sub-king of Kent, Baldred.[9]

England had suffered Viking raids in the late 8th century, but no attacks are recorded between 794 and 835, when the Isle of Sheppey in Kent was ravaged.[10] In 836 Egbert was defeated by the Vikings at Carhampton in Somerset,[7] but in 838 he was victorious over an alliance of Cornishmen and Vikings at the Battle of Hingston Down, reducing Cornwall to the status of a client kingdom.[11]

Family
Æthelwulf was the son of Egbert, King of Wessex from 802 to 839. His mother's name is unknown, and he had no recorded siblings. He is known to have had two wives in succession, and so far as is known, Osburh, the senior of the two, was the mother of all his children. She was the daughter of Oslac, described by Asser, biographer of their son Alfred the Great, as "King Æthelwulf's famous butler",[b] a man who was descended from Jutes who had ruled the Isle of Wight.[13][14] Æthelwulf had six known children. His eldest son, Æthelstan, was old enough to be appointed King of Kent in 839, so he must have been born by the early 820s, and he died in the early 850s.[c] The second son, Æthelbald, is first recorded as a charter witness in 841, and if, like Alfred, he began to attest when he was around six, he would have been born around 835; he was King of Wessex from 858 to 860. Æthelwulf's third son, Æthelberht, was probably born around 839 and was king from 860 to 865. The only daughter, Æthelswith, married Burgred, King of Mercia, in 853.[16] The other two sons were much younger: Æthelred was born around 848 and was king from 865 to 871, and Alfred was born around 849 and was king from 871 to 899.[17] In 856 Æthelwulf married Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald, King of West Francia and future Holy Roman Emperor, and his wife Ermentrude. Osburh had probably died, although it is possible that she had been repudiated.[d] There were no children from Æthelwulf's marriage to Judith, and after his death she married his eldest surviving son and successor, Æthelbald.[13]

Early life
Æthelwulf was first recorded in 825, when Egbert won the crucial Battle of Ellandun against King Beornwulf of Mercia, ending the long Mercian ascendancy over southern England. Egbert followed it up by sending Æthelwulf with Eahlstan, Bishop of Sherborne, and Wulfheard, Ealdorman of Hampshire, with a large army into Kent to expel sub-king Baldred.[e] Æthelwulf was descended from kings of Kent, and he was sub-king of Kent, and of Surrey, Sussex and Essex, which were then included in the sub-kingdom, until he inherited the throne of Wessex in 839.[22] His sub-kingship is recorded in charters, in some of which King Egbert acted with his son's permission,[13] such as a grant in 838 to Bishop Beornmod of Rochester, and Æthelwulf himself issued a charter as King of Kent in the same year.[23] Unlike their Mercian predecessors, who alienated the Kentish people by ruling from a distance, Æthelwulf and his father successfully cultivated local support by governing through Kentish ealdormen and promoting their interests.[24] In Abels' view, Egbert and Æthelwulf rewarded their friends and purged Mercian supporters.[25][f] Historians take differing views on the attitude of the new regime to the Kentish church. At Canterbury in 828 Egbert granted privileges to the bishopric of Rochester, and according to the historian of Anglo-Saxon England Simon Keynes, Egbert and Æthelwulf took steps to secure the support of Archbishop Wulfred.[27] However, the medievalist Nicholas Brooks argues that Wulfred's Mercian origin and connections proved a liability. Æthelwulf seized an estate in East Malling from the Canterbury church on the ground that it had only been granted by Baldred when he was in flight from the West Saxon forces; the issue of archiepiscopal coinage was suspended for several years; and the only estate Wulfred was granted after 825 he received from King Wiglaf of Mercia.[28]

In 829 Egbert conquered Mercia, only for Wiglaf to recover his kingdom a year later.[29] The scholar D. P. Kirby sees Wiglaf's restoration in 830 as a dramatic reversal for Egbert, which was probably followed by his loss of control of the London mint and the Mercian recovery of Essex and Berkshire,[30] and the historian Heather Edwards states that his "immense conquest could not be maintained".[7] However, in the view of Keynes: It is interesting ... that both Egbert and his son Æthelwulf appear to have respected the separate identity of Kent and its associated provinces, as if there appears to have been no plan at this stage to absorb the southeast into an enlarged kingdom stretching across the whole of southern England. Nor does it seem to have been the intention of Egbert and his successors to maintain supremacy of any kind over the kingdom of Mercia ... It is quite possible that Egbert had relinquished Mercia of his own volition; and there is no suggestion that any residual antagonism affected relations between the rulers of Wessex and Mercia thereafter.[31]

In 838 King Egbert held an assembly at Kingston in Surrey, where Æthelwulf may have been consecrated asking by the archbishop. Egbert restored the East Malling estate to Wulfred's successor as Archbishop of Canterbury, Ceolnoth, in return for a promise of "firm and unbroken friendship" for himself and Æthelwulf and their heirs, and the same condition is specified in a grant to the see of Winchester. Egbert thus ensured support for Æthelwulf, who became the first son to succeed his father as West Saxon king since 641.[32] At the same meeting Kentish monasteries chose Æthelwulf as their lord, and he undertook that, after his death, they would have freedom to elect their heads. Wulfred had devoted his archiepiscopate to fighting against secular power over Kentish monasteries, but Ceolnoth now surrendered effective control to Æthelwulf, whose offer of freedom from control after his death was unlikely to be honoured by his successors. Kentish ecclesiastics and laymen now looked for protection against Viking attacks to West Saxon rather than Mercian royal power. [33] Egbert's conquests brought him wealth far greater than his predecessors had enjoyed, and enabled him to purchase the support which secured the West Saxon throne for his descendants.[34] The stability brought by the dynastic succession of Egbert and Æthelwulf led to an expansion of commercial and agrarian resources, and to an expansion of royal income.[35] The wealth of the West Saxon kings was also increased by the agreement in 838–39 with Archbishop Ceolnoth for the previously independent West Saxon minsters to accept the king as their secular lord in return for his protection.[36] However, there was no certainty that the hegemony of Wessex would prove more permanent than that of Mercia.[37]

King of Wessex
When Æthelwulf succeeded to the throne of Wessex in 839, his experience as sub-king of Kent had given him valuable training in kingship, and he in turn made his own sons sub-kings.[38] According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, on his accession "he gave to his son Æthelstan the kingdom of the people of Kent, and the kingdom of the East Saxons [Essex] and of the people of Surrey and of the South Saxons [Sussex]". However, Æthelwulf did not give Æthelstan the same power as his father had given him, and although Æthelstan attested his father's charters[g] as king, he does not appear to have been given the power to issue his own charters. Æthelwulf exercised authority in the south-east and made regular visits there. He governed Wessex and Kent as separate spheres, and assemblies in each kingdom were only attended by the nobility of that country. The historian Janet Nelson says that "Æthelwulf ran a Carolingian-style family firm of plural realms, held together by his own authority as father-king, and by the consent of distinct élites." He maintained his father's policy of governing Kent through ealdormen appointed from the local nobility and advancing their interests, but gave less support to the church.[39] In 843 Æthelwulf granted ten hides at Little Chart to Æthelmod, the brother of the leading Kentish ealdorman Ealhere, and Æthelmod succeeded to the post on his brother's death in 853.[40] In 844 Æthelwulf granted land at Horton in Kent to Ealdorman Eadred, with permission to transfer parts of it to local landowners; in a culture of reciprocity, this created a network of mutual friendships and obligations between the beneficiaries and the king.[41] Archbishops of Canterbury were firmly in the West Saxon king's sphere. His ealdormen enjoyed a high status, and were sometimes placed higher than the king's sons in lists of witnesses to charters.[42] His reign is the first for which there is evidence of royal priests,[43] and Malmesbury Abbey regarded him as an important benefactor, who is said to have been the donor of a shrine for the relics of Saint Aldhelm.[44]

After 830, Egbert had followed a policy of maintaining good relations with Mercia, and this was continued by Æthelwulf when he became king. London was traditionally a Mercian town, but in the 830s it was under West Saxon control; soon after Æthelwulf's accession it reverted to Mercian control.[45] King Wiglaf of Mercia died in 839 and his successor, Berhtwulf, revived the Mercian mint in London; the two kingdoms appear to have struck a joint issue in the mid-840s, possibly indicating West Saxon help in reviving Mercian coinage, and showing the friendly relations between the two powers. Berkshire was still Mercian in 844, but by 849 it was part of Wessex, as Alfred was born in that year at the West Saxon royal estate in Wantage, then in Berkshire.[46][h] However, the local Mercian ealdorman, also called Æthelwulf, retained his position under the West Saxon kings.[48] Berhtwulf died in 852 and cooperation with Wessex continued under Burgred, his successor as King of Mercia, who married Æthelwulf's daughter Æthelswith in 853. In the same year Æthelwulf assisted Burgred in a successful attack on Wales to restore the traditional Mercian hegemony over the Welsh.[49] In 9th-century Mercia and Kent, royal charters were produced by religious houses, each with its own style, but in Wessex there was a single royal diplomatic tradition, probably by a single agency acting for the king. This may have originated in Egbert's reign, and it becomes clear in the 840s, when Æthelwulf had a Frankish secretary called Felix.[50] There were strong contacts between the West Saxon and Carolingian courts. The Annals of St Bertin took particular interest in Viking attacks on Britain, and in 852 Lupus, the Abbot of Ferrières and a protégé of Charles the Bald, wrote to Æthelwulf congratulating him on his victory over the Vikings and requesting a gift of lead to cover his church roof. Lupus also wrote to his "most beloved friend" Felix, asking him to manage the transport of the lead.[51] Unlike Canterbury and the south-east, Wessex did not see a sharp decline in the standard of Latin in charters in the mid-9th century, and this may have been partly due to Felix and his continental contacts.[52] Lupus thought that Felix had great influence over the King.[13] Charters were mainly issued from royal estates in counties which were the heartland of ancient Wessex, namely Hampshire, Somerset, Wiltshire and Dorset, with a few in Kent.[53]

An ancient division between east and west Wessex continued to be important in the 9th century; the boundary
was Selwood Forest on the borders of Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire. The two bishoprics of Wessex were
Selborne in the west and Winchester in the east. Æthelwulf's family connections seem to have been west of
Selwood, but his patronage was concentrated further east, particularly on Winchester, where his father was
buried, and where he appointed Swithun to succeed Helmstan as bishop in 852–853. However, he made a grant
of land in Somerset to his leading ealdorman, Eanwulf, and on 26 December 846 he granted a large estate to
himself in South Hams in west Devon. He thus changed it from royal demesne, which he was obliged to pass
on to his successor as king, to bookland, which could be transferred as the owner pleased, so he could make
land grants to followers to improve security in a frontier zone.[54]
Viking threat
Viking raids increased in the early 840s on both sides of the English Channel, and in 843 Æthelwulf was
defeated by the companies of 35 Danish ships at Carhampton in Somerset. In 850 sub-king Æthelstan and
Ealdorman Ealhhere of Kent won a naval victory over a large Viking fleet off Sandwich in Kent, capturing nine
ships and driving off the rest. Æthelwulf granted Ealhhere a large estate in Kent, but Æthelstan is not heard of
Coin of King Æthelwulf:
"EĐELVVLF REX", moneyer Manna,
Canterbury[58]
again, and probably died soon afterwards. The following year the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records five different
attacks on southern England. A Danish fleet of 350 Viking ships took London and Canterbury, and when King
Berhtwulf of Mercia went to their relief he was defeated. The Vikings then moved on to Surrey, where they
were defeated by Æthelwulf and his son Æthelbald at the Battle of Aclea. According to the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle the West Saxon levies "there made the greatest slaughter of a heathen that we have heard tell of up to
the present day". The Chronicle frequently reported victories during Æthelwulf's reign won by levies led by
ealdormen, unlike the 870s when royal command was emphasised, reflecting a more consensual style of
leadership in the earlier period.[55]
In 850 a Danish army wintered on Thanet, and in 853 ealdormen Ealhhere of Kent and Huda of Surrey were
killed in a battle against the Vikings, also on Thanet. In 855 Danish Vikings stayed over the winter on Sheppey,
before carrying on their pillaging of eastern England.[56] However, during Æthelwulf's reign Viking attacks
were contained and did not present a major threat.[57]
Coinage
The silver penny was almost the only coin used in middle and later
Anglo-Saxon England. Æthelwulf's coinage came from a main mint in
Canterbury and a secondary one at Rochester; both had been used by
Egbert for his own coinage after he gained control of Kent. During
Æthelwulf's reign, there were four main phases of the coinage
distinguishable at both mints, though they are not exactly parallel and it
is uncertain when the transitions took place. The first issue at
Canterbury carried a design known as Saxoniorum, which had been
used by Egbert for one of his own issues. This was replaced by a
portrait design in about 843, which can be subdivided further; the
earliest coins have cruder designs than the later ones. At the Rochester
mint the sequence was reversed, with an initial portrait design replaced, also in about 843, by a non-portrait
design carrying a cross-and-wedges pattern on the obverse.[13][59]
In about 848 both mints switched to a common design known as Dor¯b¯/Cant – the characters "Dor¯b¯" on the
obverse of these coins indicate either Dorobernia (Canterbury) or Dorobrevia (Rochester), and "Cant",
referring to Kent, appeared on the reverse. It is possible that the Canterbury mint continued to produce portrait
coins at the same time. The Canterbury issue seems to have been ended in 850–851 by Viking raids, though it is
possible that Rochester was spared, and the issue may have continued there. The final issue, again at both
mints, was introduced in about 852; it has an inscribed cross on the reverse and a portrait on the obverse.
Æthelwulf's coinage became debased by the end of his reign, and though the problem became worse after his
death it is possible that the debasement prompted the changes in coin type from as early as 850.[60]
Æthelwulf's first Rochester coinage may have begun when he was still sub-king of Kent, under Egbert. A hoard
of coins deposited at the beginning of Æthelwulf's reign in about 840, found in the Middle Temple in London,
contained 22 coins from Rochester and two from Canterbury of the first issue of each mint. Some numismatists
argue that the high proportion of Rochester coins means that the issue must have commenced before Egbert's
death, but an alternative explanation is that whoever hoarded the coins simply happened to have access to more
Rochester coins. No coins were issued by Æthelwulf's sons during his reign.[61]
Ceolnoth, Archbishop of Canterbury throughout Æthelwulf's reign, also minted coins of his own at Canterbury:
there were three different portrait designs, thought to be contemporary with each of the first three of
Æthelwulf's Canterbury issues. These were followed by an inscribed cross design that was uniform with
Æthelwulf's final coinage. At Rochester, Bishop Beornmod produced only one issue, a cross-and-wedges
design which was contemporary with Æthelwulf's Saxoniorum issue.[62]
Charter S 316 dated 855, in which
Æthelwulf granted land at Ulaham in
Kent to his minister Ealdhere.[64]
In the view of the numismatists Philip Grierson and Mark Blackburn, the mints of Wessex, Mercia and East
Anglia were not greatly affected by changes in political control: "the remarkable continuity of moneyers which
can be seen at each of these mints suggests that the actual mint organisation was largely independent of the
royal administration and was founded in the stable trading communities of each city".[63]
Decimation Charters
The early 20th-century historian W. H. Stevenson observed that: "Few
things in our early history have led to so much discussion" as
Æthelwulf's Decimation Charters;[65] a hundred years later the charter
expert Susan Kelly described them as "one of the most controversial
groups of Anglo-Saxon diplomas".[66] Both Asser and the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle say that Æthelwulf gave a decimation,[i] in 855, shortly
before leaving on pilgrimage to Rome. According to the Chronicle
"King Æthelwulf conveyed by charter the tenth part of his land
throughout all his kingdom to the praise of God and to his own eternal
salvation". However, Asser states that "Æthelwulf, the esteemed king,
freed the tenth part of his whole kingdom from royal service and tribute,
and as an everlasting inheritance he made it over on the cross of Christ
to the triune God, for the redemption of his soul and those of his
predecessors."[68] According to Keynes, Asser's version may just be a "loose translation" of the Chronicle, and
his implication that Æthelwulf released a tenth of all land from secular burdens was probably not intended. All
land could be regarded as the king's land, so the Chronicle reference to "his land" does not necessarily refer to
royal property, and since the booking of land – conveying it by charter – was always regarded as a pious act,
Asser's statement that he made it over to God does not necessarily mean that the charters were in favour of the
church.[69]
The Decimation Charters are divided by Susan Kelly into four groups:
1. Two dated at Winchester on 5 November 844. In a charter in the Malmesbury archive, Æthelwulf refers
in the proem to the perilous state of his kingdom as the result of the assaults of pagans and barbarians.
For the sake of his soul and in return for masses for the king and ealdormen each Wednesday, "I have
decided to give in perpetual liberty some portion of hereditary lands to all those ranks previously in
possession, both to God's servants and handmaidens serving God and to laymen, always the tenth hide,
and where it is less, then the tenth part."[j]
2. Six dated at Wilton on Easter Day, 22 April 854. In the common text of these charters, Æthelwulf states
that "for the sake of his soul and the prosperity of the kingdom and [the salvation of] the people assigned
to him by God, he has acted upon the advice given to him by his bishops, comites, and all his nobles. He
has granted the tenth part of the lands throughout his kingdom, not only to the churches, but also to his
thegns. The land is granted in perpetual liberty, so that it will remain free of royal services and all secular
burdens. In return there will be liturgical commemoration of the king and of his bishops and
ealdormen."[k]
3. Five from Old Minster, Winchester, connected with the Wilton meeting but generally considered
spurious.[l]
4. One from Kent dated 855, the only one to have the same date as the decimation according to Chronicle
and Asser. The king grants to his thegn Dunn property in Rochester "on account of the decimation of
lands which by God's gift I have decided to do". Dunn left the land to his wife with reversion to
Rochester Cathedral.[m][72]
None of the charters are original, and Stevenson dismissed all of them as fraudulent apart from the Kentish one
of 855. Stevenson saw the decimation as a donation of royal demesne to churches and laymen, with those
grants which were made to laymen being on the understanding that there would be reversion to a religious
institution.[73] Up to the 1990s, his view on the authenticity of the charters was generally accepted by scholars,
with the exception of the historian H. P. R. Finberg, who argued in 1964 that most are based on authentic
diplomas. Finberg coined the terms the 'First Decimation' of 844, which he saw as the removal of public dues
on a tenth of all bookland, and the 'Second Decimation' of 854, the donation of a tenth of "the private domain of
the royal house" to the churches. He considered it unlikely that the First Decimation had been carried into
effect, probably due to the threat from the Vikings. Finberg's terminology has been adopted, but his defence of
the First Decimation generally rejected. In 1994 Keynes defended the Wilton charters in group 2, and his
arguments have been widely accepted.[74]
Historians have been divided on how to interpret the Second Decimation, and in 1994 Keynes described it as
"one of the most perplexing problems" in the study of 9th-century charters. He set out three alternatives:
1. It conveyed a tenth of the royal demesne – the lands of the crown as opposed to the personal property of
the sovereign – into the hands of churches, ecclesiastics and laymen. In Anglo-Saxon England property
was either folkland or bookland. The transmission of folkland was governed by the customary rights of
kinsmen, subject to the king's approval, whereas bookland was established by the grant of a royal charter,
and could be disposed of freely by the owner. Booking land thus converted it by charter from folkland to
bookland. The royal demesne was the crown's folkland, whereas the king's bookland was his own
personal property which he could leave by will as he chose. In the decimation Æthelwulf may have
conveyed royal folkland by charter to become bookland, in some cases to laymen who already leased the
land.[75]
2. It was the booking of a tenth of folkland to its owners, who would then be free to convey it to a
church.[76]
3. It was a reduction of one tenth in the secular burdens on lands already in the possession of
landowners.[76] The secular burdens would have included the provision of supplies for the king and his
officials, and payment of various taxes.[77]
Some scholars, for example Frank Stenton, author of the standard history of Anglo-Saxon England, along with
Keynes and Abels, see the Second Decimation as a donation of royal demesne. In Abels' view Æthelwulf
sought loyalty from the aristocracy and church during the king's forthcoming absence from Wessex, and
displayed a sense of dynastic insecurity also evident in his father's generosity towards the Kentish church in
838, and in an "avid attention" in this period to compiling and revising royal genealogies.[78] Keynes suggests
that "Æthelwulf's purpose was presumably to earn divine assistance in his struggles against the Vikings",[79]
and the mid-20th century historian Eric John observes that "a lifetime of medieval studies teaches one that an
early medieval king was never so political as when he was on his knees".[80] The view that the decimation was
a donation of the king's own personal estate is supported by the Anglo-Saxonist Alfred Smyth, who argues that
these were the only lands the king was entitled to alienate by book.[81][n] The historian Martin Ryan prefers the
view that Æthelwulf freed a tenth part of land owned by laymen from secular obligations, who could now
endow churches under their own patronage. Ryan sees it as part of a campaign of religious devotion.[84]
According to the historian David Pratt, it "is best interpreted as a strategic 'tax cut', designed to encourage
cooperation in defensive measures through a partial remission of royal dues".[85] Nelson states that the
decimation took place in two phases, in Wessex in 854 and Kent in 855, reflecting that they remained separate
kingdoms.[86]
Kelly argues that most charters were based on genuine originals, including the First Decimation of 844. She
says: "Commentators have been unkind [and] the 844 version has not been given the benefit of the doubt". In
her view Æthelwulf then gave a 10% tax reduction on bookland, and ten years later he took the more generous
step of "a widespread distribution of royal lands". Unlike Finberg, she believes that both decimations were
carried out, although the second one may not have been completed due to opposition from Æthelwulf's son
Æthelbald. She thinks that the grants of bookland to laymen in the Second Decimation were unconditional, not
with reversion to religious houses as Stevenson had argued.[87] However, Keynes is not convinced by Kelly's
arguments, and thinks that the First Decimation charters were 11th or early 12th century fabrications.[88]
Pilgrimage to Rome and later life
In the early 850s Æthelwulf went on pilgrimage to Rome. According to Abels: "Æthelwulf was at the height of
his power and prestige. It was a propitious time for the West Saxon king to claim a place of honour among the
kings and emperors of christendom."[89] His eldest surviving sons Æthelbald and Æthelberht were then adults,
while Æthelred and Alfred were still young children. In 853 Æthelwulf sent his younger sons to Rome, perhaps
accompanying envoys in connection with his own forthcoming visit. Alfred, and possibly Æthelred as well,
were invested with the "belt of consulship". Æthelred's part in the journey is only known from a contemporary
record in the liber vitae of San Salvatore, Brescia, as later records such as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle were only
interested in recording the honour paid to Alfred.[13] Abels sees the embassy as paving the way for Æthelwulf's
pilgrimage, and the presence of Alfred, his youngest and therefore most expendable son, as a gesture of
goodwill to the papacy; confirmation by Pope Leo IV made Alfred his spiritual son, and thus created a spiritual
link between the two "fathers".[90][o] Kirby argues that the journey may indicate that Alfred was intended for
the church,[92] while Nelson on the contrary sees Æthelwulf's purpose as affirming his younger sons'
throneworthiness, thus protecting them against being tonsured by their elder brothers, which would have
rendered them ineligible for kingship.[93]
Æthelwulf set out for Rome in the spring of 855, accompanied by Alfred and a large retinue.[94] The King left
Wessex in the care of his oldest surviving son, Æthelbald, and the sub-kingdom of Kent to the rule of
Æthelberht, and thereby confirmed that they were to succeed to the two kingdoms.[25] On the way the party
stayed with Charles the Bald in Francia, where there were the usual banquets and exchange of gifts. Æthelwulf
stayed a year in Rome,[95] and his gifts to the Diocese of Rome included a gold crown weighing 4 pounds
(1.8 kg), two gold goblets, a sword bound with gold, four silver-gilt bowls, two silk tunics and two goldinterwoven
veils. He also gave gold to the clergy and leading men and silver to the people of Rome. According
to the historian Joanna Story, his gifts rivalled those of Carolingian donors and the Byzantine emperor and
"were clearly chosen to reflect the personal generosity and spiritual wealth of the West Saxon king; here was no
Germanic 'hillbilly' from the backwoods of the Christian world but, rather, a sophisticated, wealthy and utterly
contemporary monarch".[96] According to the 12th-century chronicler William of Malmesbury, he helped to
pay for the restoration of the Saxon quarter, which had recently been destroyed by fire, for English pilgrims.[97]
The pilgrimage puzzles historians and Kelly comments that "it is extraordinary that an early medieval king
could consider his position safe enough to abandon his kingdom in a time of extreme crisis". She suggests that
Æthelwulf may have been motivated by a personal religious impulse.[98] Ryan sees it as an attempt to placate
the divine wrath displayed by Viking attacks,[84] whereas Nelson thinks he aimed to enhance his prestige in
dealing with the demands of his adult sons.[99] In Kirby's view:
Æthelwulf's journey to Rome is of great interest for it did not signify abdication and a retreat from
the world as their journeys to Rome had for Cædwalla and Ine and other Anglo-Saxon kings. It
was more a display of the king's international standing and a demonstration of the prestige his
dynasty enjoyed in Frankish and papal circles.[100]
On his way back from Rome Æthelwulf again stayed with King Charles the Bald, and may have joined him on
a campaign against a Viking warband.[101] On 1 October 856 Æthelwulf married Charles's daughter, Judith,
aged 12 or 13, at Verberie. The marriage was considered extraordinary by contemporaries and by modern
historians. Carolingian princesses rarely married and were usually sent to nunneries, and it was almost
unknown for them to marry foreigners. Judith was crowned queen and anointed by Hincmar, Archbishop of
Rheims. Although empresses had been anointed before, this is the first definitely known anointing of a
Carolingian queen. In addition West Saxon custom, described by Asser as "perverse and detestable", was that
the wife of a king of Wessex could not be called queen or sit on the throne with her husband – she was just the
king's wife.[102]
King Æthelwulf's
ring
Æthelwulf returned to Wessex to face a revolt by Æthelbald, who attempted to prevent his father from
recovering his throne. Historians give varying explanations for both the rebellion and the marriage. In Nelson's
view, Æthelwulf's marriage to Judith added the West Saxon king to the family of kings and princely allies
which Charles was creating.[103] Charles was under attack both from Vikings and from a rising among his own
nobility, and Æthelwulf had great prestige due to his victories over the Vikings; some historians such as Kirby
and Pauline Stafford see the marriage as sealing an anti-Viking alliance. The marriage gave Æthelwulf a share
in Carolingian prestige, and Kirby describes the anointing of Judith as "a charismatic sanctification which
enhanced her status, blessed her womb and conferred additional throne-worthiness on her male offspring."
These marks of a special status implied that a son of hers would succeed to at least part of Æthelwulf's
kingdom, and explain Æthelbald's decision to rebel.[104] The historian Michael Enright denies that an anti-
Viking alliance between two such distant kingdoms could serve any useful purpose, and argues that the
marriage was Æthelwulf's response to news that his son was planning to rebel; his son by an anointed
Carolingian queen would be in a strong position to succeed as king of Wessex instead of the rebellious
Æthelbald.[105] Abels suggests that Æthelwulf sought Judith's hand because he needed her father's money and
support to overcome his son's rebellion,[106] but Kirby and Smyth argue that it is extremely unlikely that
Charles the Bald would have agreed to marry his daughter to a ruler who was known to be in serious political
difficulty.[107] Æthelbald may also have acted out of resentment at the loss of patrimony he suffered as a result
of the decimation.[98]
Æthelbald's rebellion was supported by Ealhstan, Bishop of Sherborne, and Eanwulf, ealdorman of Somerset,
even though they appear to have been two of the king's most trusted advisers.[108] According to Asser, the plot
was concerted "in the western part of Selwood", and western nobles may have backed Æthelbald because they
resented the patronage Æthelwulf gave to eastern Wessex.[109] Asser also stated that Æthelwulf agreed to give
up the western part of his kingdom in order to avoid a civil war. Some historians such as Keynes and Abels
think that his rule was then confined to the south-east,[110] while others such as Kirby think it is more likely
that it was Wessex itself which was divided, with Æthelbald keeping Wessex west of Selwood, Æthelwulf
holding the centre and east, and Æthelberht keeping the south-east.[111] Æthelwulf insisted that Judith should
sit beside him on the throne until the end of his life, and according to Asser this was "without any disagreement
or dissatisfaction on the part of his nobles".[112]
King Æthelwulf's ring
King Æthelwulf's ring was found in a cart rut in Laverstock in Wiltshire in about
August 1780 by one William Petty, who sold it to a silversmith in Salisbury. The
silversmith sold it to the Earl of Radnor, and the earl's son, William, donated it to the
British Museum in 1829. The ring, together with a similar ring of Æthelwulf's daughter
Æthelswith, is one of two key examples of nielloed 9th-century metalwork. They
appear to represent the emergence of a "court style" of West Saxon metalwork,
characterised by an unusual Christian iconography, such as a pair of peacocks at the
Fountain of Life on the Æthelwulf ring, associated with Christian immortality. The ring
is inscribed "Æthelwulf Rex", firmly associating it with the King, and the inscription
forms part of the design, so it cannot have been added later. Many of its features are
typical of 9th-century metalwork, such as the design of two birds, beaded and speckled borders, and a saltire
with arrow-like terminals on the back. It was probably manufactured in Wessex, but was typical of the
uniformity of animal ornament in England in the 9th century. In the view of Leslie Webster, an expert on
medieval art: "Its fine Trewhiddle style ornament would certainly fit a mid ninth-century date."[113] In Nelson's
view, "it was surely made to be a gift from this royal lord to a brawny follower: the sign of a successful ninthcentury
kingship".[13] The art historian David Wilson sees it as a survival of the pagan tradition of the generous
king as the "ring-giver".[114]
Æthelwulf's will
A page from King Alfred's will
Æthelwulf's will has not survived, but Alfred's has and it provides some
information about his father's intentions. The kingdom was to be
divided between the two oldest surviving sons, with Æthelbald getting
Wessex and Æthelberht Kent and the south-east. The survivor of
Æthelbald, Æthelred and Alfred was to inherit their father's bookland –
his personal property as opposed to the royal lands which went with the
kingship – and Abels and Yorke argue that this probably means that the
survivor was to inherit the throne of Wessex as well.[115] Other
historians disagree. Nelson states that the provision regarding the
personal property had nothing to do with the kingship,[13] and Kirby
comments: "Such an arrangement would have led to fratricidal strife.
With three older brothers, Alfred's chances of reaching adulthood
would, one feels, have been minimal."[116] Æthelwulf's moveable
wealth, such as gold and silver, was to be divided between "children,
nobles and the needs of the king's soul".[13] For the latter, he left one
tenth of his hereditary land to be set aside to feed the poor, and he
ordered that three hundred mancuses be sent to Rome each year, one
hundred to be spent on lighting the lamps in St Peter's at Easter, one
hundred for the lights of St Paul's, and one hundred for the pope.[117]
Death and succession
Æthelwulf died on 13 January 858. According to the Annals of St
Neots, he was buried at Steyning in Sussex, but his body was later
transferred to Winchester, probably by Alfred.[118] Æthelwulf was succeeded by Æthelbald in Wessex and
Æthelberht in Kent and the south-east. The prestige conferred by a Frankish marriage was so great that
Æthelbald then wedded his step-mother Judith, to Asser's retrospective horror; he described the marriage as a
"great disgrace", and "against God's prohibition and Christian dignity".[13] When Æthelbald died only two
years later, Æthelberht became King of Wessex as well as Kent, and Æthelwulf's intention of dividing his
kingdoms between his sons was thus set aside. In the view of Yorke and Abels this was because Æthelred and
Alfred were too young to rule, and Æthelberht agreed in return that his younger brothers would inherit the
whole kingdom on his death,[119] whereas Kirby and Nelson think that Æthelberht just became the trustee for
his younger brothers' share of the bookland.[120]
After Æthelbald's death Judith sold her possessions and returned to her father, but two years later she eloped
with Baldwin, Count of Flanders. In the 890s their son, also called Baldwin, married Æthelwulf's
granddaughter Ælfthryth.[13]
Historiography
Æthelwulf's reputation among historians was poor in the twentieth century. In 1935 the historian R. H. Hodgkin
attributed his pilgrimage to Rome to "the unpractical piety which had led him to desert his kingdom at a time of
great danger", and described his marriage to Judith as "the folly of a man senile before his time".[121] To
Stenton in the 1960s he was "a religious and unambitious man, for whom engagement in war and politics was
an unwelcome consequence of rank".[122] One dissenter was Finberg, who in 1964 described him as "a king
whose valour in war and princely munificence recalled the figures of the heroic age",[123] but in 1979 Enright
said: "More than anything else he appears to have been an impractical religious enthusiast."[124] Early medieval
writers, especially Asser, emphasise his religiosity and his preference for consensus, seen in the concessions
made to avert a civil war on his return from Rome.[p] In Story's view "his legacy has been clouded by
accusations of excessive piety which (to modern sensibilities at least) has seemed at odds with the demands of
early medieval kingship". In 839 an unnamed Anglo-Saxon king wrote to the Holy Roman Emperor Louis the
Pious asking for permission to travel through his territory on the way to Rome, and relating an English priest's
dream which foretold disaster unless Christians abandoned their sins. This is now believed to have been an
unrealised project of Egbert at the end of his life, but it was formerly attributed to Æthelwulf, and seen as
exhibiting what Story calls his reputation for "dramatic piety", and irresponsibility for planning to abandon his
kingdom at the beginning of his reign.[126]
In the twenty-first century he is seen very differently by historians. Æthelwulf is not listed in the index of Peter
Hunter Blair's An Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England, first published in 1956, but in a new introduction to
the 2003 edition Keynes listed him among people "who have not always been accorded the attention they might
be thought to deserve ... for it was he, more than any other, who secured the political fortune of his people in
the ninth century, and who opened up channels of communication which led through Frankish realms and
across the Alps to Rome".[127] According to Story: "Æthelwulf acquired and cultivated a reputation both in
Francia and Rome which is unparalleled in the sources since the height of Offa's and Coenwulf's power at the
turn of the ninth century".[128]
Nelson describes him as "one of the great underrated among Anglo-Saxons", and complains that she was only
allowed 2,500 words for him in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, compared with 15,000 for
Edward II and 35,000 for Elizabeth I.[129] She says:
Æthelwulf's reign has been relatively under-appreciated in modern scholarship. Yet he laid the
foundations for Alfred's success. To the perennial problems of husbanding the kingdom's
resources, containing conflicts within the royal family, and managing relations with neighbouring
kingdoms, Æthelwulf found new as well as traditional answers. He consolidated old Wessex, and
extended his reach over what is now Devon and Cornwall. He ruled Kent, working with the grain
of its political community. He borrowed ideological props from Mercians and Franks alike, and
went to Rome, not to die there, like his predecessor Ine, ... but to return, as Charlemagne had, with
enhanced prestige. Æthelwulf coped more effectively with Scandinavian attacks than did most
contemporary rulers.[13]
Notes
a. Egbert's death and Æthelwulf's accession is dated by historians to 839. According to Susan Ke,l l"ythere may be grounds
for arguing that Æthelwulf's succession actually took place late in 838["3,] but Joanna Story argues that the West Saxon
regnal lists show the length of Egbert's reign as 37 years and 7 months, and as he acceded in 802 he is unlikely to have
died before July 839.[4]
b. Keynes and Lapidge comment: "The office of butler (pincerna) was a distinguished one, and its holders were likely to
have been important figures in the royal court and household["1.2]
c. Æthelstan was sub-king of Kent ten years before Alfred was born, and some late versions of thAen glo-Saxon Chronicle
make him the brother of Æthelwulf rather than his son. This has been accepted by some historians, but is now generally
rejected. It has also been suggested that Æthelstan was born of an unrecorded first marriage, but historians generally
assume that he was Osburh's son[.15]
d. Nelson states that it is uncertain whether Osburh died or had been repudiate[d1,3] but Abels argues that it is "extremely
unlikely" that she was repudiated, asH incmar of Rheims, who played a prominent role in Æthelwulf's and Judith's
marriage ceremony, was a strong advocate of the indissolubility of marriage[1.8]
e. The historians Janet Nelson and Ann Williams date Baldred's removal and the start of Æthelwulf's sub-kingship to
825,[19] but D. P. Kirby states that Baldred was probably not driven out until 826[2.0] Simon Keynes cites the Anglo-
Saxon Chronicle as stating that Æthelwulf expelled Baldred in 825, and secured the submission of the people of Kent,
Surrey, Sussex and Essex; however, charter evidence suggests that Beornwulf was recognised as overlord of Kent until
he was killed in battle while attempting to put down a rebellion in East Anglia in 826. His successor as king of Mercia,
Ludeca, never seems to have been recognised in Kent. In a charter of 828 Egbert refers to his son Æthelwulf "whom we
have made king in Kent" as if the appointment was fairly new.[21]
f. Christ Church, Canterbury kept lists of patrons who had made donations to the church, and late 8th and early 9th century
patrons who had been supporters of Mercian power were expunged from the lists towards the end of the 9th cent.u[2ry6]
References
g. To attest a charter was to witness a grant of land by the king. The attesters were listed by t hsecribe at the end of the
charter, although usually only the most high-ranking witnesses were included.
h. The scholar James Booth suggests that the part of Berkshire where Alfred was born may have beene Wst Saxon territory
throughout the period.[47]
i. "Decimation" is used here in the sense of a donation of a tenth part. This usually means a payment to the ruler or church
(tithe),[67] but it is used here to mean a donation of a tenth part by the king. Historians do not agree what it was a tenth
of.
j. The charters are S 294, 294a and 294b. Kelly treats 294a and b, which are both fromM almesbury Abbey, as one
text.[70]
k. The six charters are S 302, 303, 304, 305, 307 and 308[7.1]
l. The five Old Minster charters are S 309-13. Kelly states that there are six charters, but she only lists five and she states
that there are fourteen in total, whereas there would be fifteen if there were six Old Minster charte[r6s6.]
m. The Kent charter is S 315.[66]
n. Smyth dismisses all the Decimation Charters as spurious[8,2] with what the scholar David Pratt describes as
"unwarranted scepticism".[83]
o. Abels is sceptical whether Æthelred accompanied Alfred to Rome as he is not mentioned in a letter from Leo to
Æthelwulf reporting Alfred's reception[,91] but Nelson argues that only a fragment of the letter survives in an 11thcentury
copy, and the scribe who selected excerpts from Leo's letters, like the editors of thAen glo-Saxon Chronicle, was
only interested in Alfred.[13]
p. The historian Richard North argues that the Old English poem "Deor" was written in about 856 as a satire on Æthelwulf
and a "mocking reflection" on Æthelbald's attitude towards him[1.25]
1. "Notes and Queries about the Mortuary Chests "(http://
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5. Keynes 1995, pp. 22, 30–37; Williams 1991b; Kirby
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6. Abels 2002, p. 85.
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8. Abels 2002, pp. 86–87.
9. Keynes 1993, pp. 113–19; Brooks 1984, pp. 132–36.
10. Ryan 2013, p. 258; Stenton 1971, p. 241.
11. Stenton 1971, p. 235; Charles-Edwards 2013, p. 431.
12. Keynes & Lapidge 1983, pp. 229–30.
13. Nelson 2004a.
14. Nelson 2004b.
15. Hodgkin 1935, pp. 497, 721; Stenton 1971, p. 236, n.
1; Abels 1998, p. 50; Nelson 2004b.
16. Abels 1998, p. 50.
17. Miller 2004.
18. Abels 1998, p. 71, n. 69.
19. Nelson 2004a; Williams 1991a.
20. Kirby 2000, pp. 155–56.
21. Keynes 1993, pp. 120–21.
22. Williams 1991a; Stenton 1971, p. 231; Kirby 2000,
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23. Smyth 1995, p. 673, n. 63.
24. Keynes 1993, pp. 112–20.
25. Abels 2002, p. 88.
26. Fleming 1995, p. 75.
27. Keynes 1993, pp. 120–21; Keynes 1995, p. 40.
28. Brooks 1984, pp. 136–37.
29. Stenton 1971, pp. 232–33.
30. Kirby 2000, p. 157.
31. Keynes 1995, pp. 40–41.
32. Wormald 1982, p. 140; Keynes 1994, pp. 1112–13; S
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33. Nelson 2004a; Keynes 1993, p. 124; Brooks 1984,
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34. Yorke 1990, pp. 148–49.
35. Pratt 2007, p. 17.
36. Kelly 2005, p. 89.
37. Abels 1998, p. 28.
38. Yorke 1990, pp. 168–69.
39. Keynes 1993, pp. 124–27; Nelson 2004a.
40. Brooks 1984, pp. 147–49.
41. Abels 1998, pp. 32–33; S 319 Sawyer.
42. Abels 1998, p. 271.
43. Pratt 2007, p. 64.
44. Kelly 2005, pp. 13, 102.
45. Keynes 1993, pp. 127–28.
46. Kirby 2000, pp. 160–61; Keynes 1998, p. 6; Booth
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47. Booth 1998, p. 66.
48. Abels 1998, p. 29.
49. Kirby 2000, p. 161.
50. Keynes 1994, pp. 1109–23; Nelson 2004a.
51. Nelson 2013, pp. 236–38; Stafford 1981, p. 137.
52. Ryan 2013, p. 252.
53. Abels 1998, p. 52.
54. Yorke 1995, pp. 23–24, 98–99; Nelson 2004a; Finberg
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55. Nelson 2004a; Story 2003, p. 227.
56. Stenton 1971, p. 243; Abels 1998, p. 88.
57. Ryan 2013, p. 258.
58. Grueber & Keary 1893, pp. 9, 17 no. 19, Plate III.4;
Early Medieval Coins Fitzwilliam Museum.
59. Grierson & Blackburn 2006, pp. 270, 287–91.
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External links
Æthelwulf 1 at Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England
Regnal titles
Preceded by
Egbert
King of Wessex
839–858
Succeeded by
Æthelbald
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Æthelwulf&oldid=784363977"
Categories: Burials at Winchester Cathedral West Saxon monarchs 858 deaths
9th-century English monarchs House of Wessex
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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may
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Æthelwulf married of Wessex, Queen Consort Osburh. Osburh (daughter of of Wessex, Oslac) was born in UNKNOWN in Kingdom of Wessex (England); died in DECEASED in Kingdom of Wessex (England). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Appointments / Titles: Between 839 and 854; Queen consort of Wessex

Notes:

Osburh

Queen consort of Wessex
Tenure c. 839 – c. 854
Spouse Æthelwulf, King of Wessex
Issue
Æthelstan of Wessex
Æthelswith, Queen of Mercia
Æthelbald, King of Wessex
Æthelbert, King of Wessex
Æthelred, King of Wessex
Alfred, King of Wessex
House House of Wessex (by marriage)
Father Oslac

Osburh
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Osburh or Osburga was the first wife of King Æthelwulf of
Wessex and mother of Alfred the Great. Alfred's biographer,
Asser, described her as "a most religious woman, noble in
character and noble by birth".[1]

Osburh's existence is known only from Asser's Life of King Alfred. She is not named as witness to any charters, nor is her death reported in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. So far as is known, she was the mother of all Æthelwulf's children, his five sons Æthelstan, Æthelbald, Æthelberht, Æthelred and Alfred the Great, and his daughter Æthelswith, wife of King Burgred of Mercia.

She is best known for Asser's story about a book of Saxon songs which she showed to Alfred and his brothers, offering to give the book to whoever could first memorise it, a challenge which Alfred took up and won. This exhibits the interest of high status ninth-century women in books, and their role in educating their children.[2]

Osburh was the daughter of Oslac (who is also only known from Asser's Life), King Æthelwulf's pincerna (butler), an important figure in the royal court and household.[3] Oslac is described as a descendant of King Cerdic's Jutish nephews, Stuf and Wihtgar, who conquered the Isle of Wight.[4] and, by this, is also ascribed Geatish/Gothic ancestry.

Notes
1. Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge eds, Alfred the Great: Asser's Life of King Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources, London, Penguin Classics, 1983, p. 68
2. Janet L. Nelson, Osburh, 2004, Oxford Online Dictionary of National Biography (http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/20887) In Nelson's view, Osburh may have been dead by 856 or may have been repudiated.
3. Keynes and Lapidge, pp. 68, 229.
4. Asser states that Oslac was a Goth, but this is regarded by historians as an error as Stuf and iWghtgar were Jutes. Keynes and Lapidge pp. 229-30 and Frank StentonA, nglo-Saxon England, Oxford, Oxford UP, 3rd edition 1971, p. 23-4

References
Asser's Life of King Alfred
Lees, Clare A. & Gillian R. Overing (eds), Double Agents: Women and Clerical Culture in Anglo-Saxon
England. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2001. ISBN 0-8122-3628-9
External links
Osburg 2 at Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Osburh&oldid=774039684"
Categories: 9th-century deaths Anglo-Saxon royal consorts 9th-century English people
9th-century women House of Wessex
This page was last edited on 5 April 2017, at 22:30.
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apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered
trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Appointments / Titles: Ealdorman of the Gaini
• Appointments / Titles: The Great
• House: Gaini
• Nickname: Mucel
• FSID: M8X5-64Z

Notes:

This is ÆTHELRED MUCEL, EALDORMAN OF GAINAS and is not the same as Æthelred I, King of Wessex or Aethelred, "the Pious" of Wessex.
They lived during the same time period and knew each other. Æthelred Mucel was an Ealdorman in Mercia and the father in law of Alfred the Great. Where as Æthelred I was Alfred the Great's older brother and was King of Wessex, it was Æthelred I who died in 871. Æthelred Mucel continued to live until sometime after 895.
They are TWO DIFFERENT PEOPLE!
----------------------------------------------------
Æthelred Mucel was an Anglo-Saxon Ealdorman of the Gaini Tribe of Mercia. The Gaini inhabited the area of Modern day England that became known as Gainsborough in Lincolnshire, named after them. His date of birth and parentage is not know with certainty. It is likely he was born about 825.

Æthelred married Eadburh, 'from the royal stock of the king of the Mercians' believed to be descended from King Cenwulf of Mercia. Together they had two known children:
- Æthelwulf, Ealdorman of Mercia died 901
- Ealhswith, married Alfred the Great in 868 and was the mother of generations of English Kings.

Æthelred Mucel is known to have been alive in 895 when he witnessed a charter. The date and circumstances of his death and burial are not known, however, it was sometime after 895. He was survived by his wife Eadburh, who was later described as a 'chaste widow'

Through his daughter Ealhswith, Æthelred Mucel was the grandfather of King Edward the Elder and Æthelflæd Lady of Mercia, often considered Queen of Mercia.

**********************************************
ÆTHELRED "Mucel" (-885 or after). "Mucel dux" subscribed a charter of King Æthelred I dated 868. Ealdorman of the Gainas in Mercia. m EADBURGA, daughter of [CENWULF King of Mercia & his wife Elfrida]. Asser records that Alfred's mother-in-law "Edburga of the royal line of Mercia…was a venerable lady and after the decease of her husband, she remained many years a widow, even till her own death." According to Weir, she was perhaps the daughter of Cenwulf King of Mercia. The primary source on which this is based has not yet been identified, and the chronology is not favourable considering King Cenwulf's death in 821. Æthelred & his wife had two children:
a) ÆTHELWULF (-903). The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records the death in 903 of "ealdorman Æthelwulf the brother of Ealswith, the mother of King Edward." Ealdorman.
b) EALHSWITH ([848/53]-904). Asser records the marriage in 868 of Alfred and "a noble Mercian lady, daughter of Athelred surnamed Mucil earl of the Gaini…[and] Edburga of the royal line of Mercia." Roger of Hoveden records the names of her parents, specifying that her mother was related to the kings of Mercia. Her birth date is estimated from her having given birth to her first child in 869. "Ealhswith mater regis" subscribed a charter of King Edward dated 901. She founded the convent of St Mary's at Winchester, and became a nun there after her husband died. m (868) ALFRED of Wessex, son of ÆTHELWULF King of Wessex & his [first] wife Osburga (Wantage, Berkshire 849[157]-26 Oct 899, bur Winchester Cathedral, transferred to Hyde Abbey, Winchester, later called the New Minster). He succeeded in 871 as ALFRED King of Wessex.

geni.com
Æthelred
Also Known As: ""Ealdorman of the Gainas""
Birthdate: circa 825
Birthplace: Mercia, England
Death: circa 895
Mercia, Lincolnshire, England
Immediate Family:
Husband of Ædburh
Father of Æthelwulf and Ealhswith
Occupation: Earl of the Gaini, of Gainsborough & of Lincolnshire, Lord de Gainsborough, graaf Mercia/Eadburth

Æthelred married of Mercia, Eadburh in 868 in Kingdom of Mercia, England. Eadburh (daughter of of Mercia, King Wigmind and of Mercia, Queen Elfleda) was born in 822 in York, Yorkshire, England; died in 895 in Wantage, Oxfordshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• FSID: LH2D-YSM

Notes:

"Eadburh, from the royal stock of the king of the Mercians."
Daughter of Coenwulf, King of Mercia. Wife of Æthelred Mucel, ealdorman of the Gaini. Mother in Law of Alfred the Great.

Eadburh and Æthelred had at least two children:
- Ealdorman Æthelwulf (died 901)
- Ealhswith (died 5 December 902), in 868 she married Alfred the Great, by whom she had five children who survived to adulthood.

The name Eadburh means "Wealthy Fortress"

According to Asser, Alfred the Great's biographer, the mother of Alfred's wife was "Eadburh, from the royal stock of the king of the Mercians. I often saw her myself with my very own eyes for several years before her death. She was a notable woman, who remained for many years after the death of her husband a chaste widow, until her death". Asser must have admired Eadburh indeed for he identifies her by name, when he did not even identify her daughter, Ealhswith, Alfred's wife, by name any where in his work.

Eadburh's parentage is not known with certainty. The Foundation for Medieval Genealogy and the Henry Project (both respected genealogy research sites) both identify Eadburgh as a possible daughter of Coenwulf, King of Mercia from 796-821.

In "The Earliest English Kings" Kirby identifies Eadburh as the daughter of Coenwulf, King of Mercia. He attributes this information also to Asser (Alfred the Great's biographer) stating "Alfred's wife Ealhswith was descended from Coenwulf through her mother, Eadburh, though Asser does not specify how."

Others speculate that she was born to one of Coenwulf's children but no-one identifies which.

It is important to note that Asser also identifies another woman named "Eadburgh" who was the daughter of Offa, King of Mercia (757-796). Offa's daughter was the wife of King Beorhtric of Wessex (reign 786 to 802). It is certain that this Eadburh was NOT the same as Ealhswith's mother. For Eadburh,
Ealhswith's mother, is described as "royal noble and chaste" and she also lived at Alfred's court before her death. Asser had nothing but contempt for Eadburh, Offa's daughter, stating she poisoned her husband King Beorhtric, ended up living in exile in Francia, was rejected by King Charlemagne, became abbess of a convent but was expelled from the convent for fornication and ended her days as a street beggar in Italy.

CARE NEEDS TO BE TAKEN NOT TO CONFUSE EADBURH THE DAUGHTER OF COENWULF WITH EADBURH THE DAUGHTER OF OFFA.